Strategy
In the past 6 months spent working in a Web agency, I think the term I’ve seen most painfully misused (including, quite likely, by myself) is strategy. Most people say “strategy” when they actually mean a tactic, or a scheme, or just… an idea.
To help me avoid the mistake, I keep repeating to myself this simple sentence, inspired by the insightful David Rollert:
In a war, a general will have a goal (e.g. achieve fast victory with minimal losses and no civilian casualty), which combined with an analysis of the situation will result in a strategy (e.g. play the surprise effect, blitzkrieg, etc). The strategy will then be put to effect on the ground through tactics (e.g. attack here, attack there, and reinforce defences there to alleviate the potential impact of a counterattack).
If I’m not too far off, I hope this may help me ban misuse of the dreaded s-word from most of my daily conversations. Wish me luck.
P.S.: nothing wrong with not being a strategists. Any war will need many more able tacticians than strategists.
P.P.S.: make love, not war.
the sentence i keep repeating (for the same reason!) is, “a strategy describes what you want to accomplish to achieve an objective, and a tactic describes how you’re going to accomplish it”. any value for you there?
good luck!
@jeffscott
Friday, October 16, 2009 at 11:14
Jeff, yes, this is a much simpler way of saying it. Much less bellicose, too!
olivier
Friday, October 16, 2009 at 19:43