Strategist Beware!
Picture credit: andreas nilsson
Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary’s men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, in disgust at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest–headed of deductive reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt.
George Eliot, Felix Holt, The Radical
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Oh how true! A strategy is nothing if the staff who will have to implement it and the wider stakeholder population aren’t with you!
Ha! A very useful reminder Colin. Strategy must always take into account the potential behaviour of one’s own forces – even if they “obey orders” their interpretation of those orders will probably differ from one’s own intent. As always – it’s the people who are the challenge, not the processes or systems.
As a very wise business leader once taught me: “Strategy is important, but execution is everything”
Strategies are important…but relationships are King (or should that be Queen?).
You’ve provided a great metaphor for why national central planning doesn’t work.
A good strategy will account for realistic, logical predictions of human behavior. I count this as part of the ‘capabilities’ in organizational models. It’s not only important what people can or could do, but also what are they willing to do?
Imagine the same chess game with a sophisticated compensation plan for each of the pieces. Could they be controlled any more effectively?
This analogy explains why management is not leadership: telling people what to do, measuring their performance and compensating for it – it doesn’t work when the people aren’t ‘bought in’.
Also, leadership alone can’t substitute for management. The promise of a wonderful future hasn’t changed the behavior of US citizens much. A clearly articulated vision, without frequent re-assessment and troubleshooting of the plan, will probably remain a dream.
I think a way for leaders to deal with this issue is to establish a clear vision and set clear behavioral expectations (values), then encourage people to do what they can to contribute to reaching the goal. Of course there will be constraints (shareholder vs. bondholder interests, customer interests, etc.), which is good because the natural constraints are like guide rails for self-managed teams.
Nicely put. The way I think of it, social engineering is both a security threat and a strategic tool…
People, Process, and Tools are what it is all about for me. Get the first one right and even if the other two, and I include strategy in there as a combination of both process and tool, are weak you stand a good chance of success.
Weak people with the most robust processes and the best tools money can buy will only have the same result – failure.
We constantly overlook the people factors, e.g. for one we appoint leaders where managers are needed and vice versa to echo Steve’s comments above, and then wonder why we fail to deliver.
YMMV
A strategist who does not understand the importance of all of the pieces, deserves “checkmate” (at best).
Over the past quarter of a century my company, Dynamic Concepts Development Corporation, has been called in to provide guidance at all levels. Occasionally we have two clients with apparently identical goals (on paper).
Yet our recommendations may vary widely because of various aspects of the clients environment. This can range from management styles and policies all the way down to the work patterns and office relationships of the “people in the trenches”.
A successful “strategy” MUST taken into account all aspects of the situation; “friend” and “foe” alike.
[...] had such great feedback to the Strategist Beware piece the other week and your responses made me think a little bit more about the chess [...]