The tactical level is the point of contact with users — customers, suppliers and society. Here is where a multitude of choices are made every day to solve user problems and drive progress. When talent understands what the organisation is trying to achieve and how, they consistently make better choices, faster.
Tactics are not execution — they’re strategy in action.
Being Tactical
Tactical choices are made within the boundaries set by strategy — following a path of least resistance, with each choice moving us in the right direction, building momentum. However, the benefits of short-term, compounding wins are the reason some leaders favour being tactical over being strategic.
Privileging tactical action over strategic thinking has speed and cost advantages — resources are not wasted on yet another plan that fails to survive contact with reality. Experienced leaders consistently making good tactical decisions can even create a coherent line of action that talent understands and can follow.
Yet, the short-term benefits of being tactical can create significant disadvantages long-term. Without a strategy explaining why the leader is making such decisions, talent doesn’t learn how to make good choices themselves. They end up defaulting to the leader for every decision.
The organisation now becomes limited by the leader’s cognitive capacity: how many decisions can they make in a day? How much talent can they interact with? How much time do they have to learn what’s changing in the wider landscape and how this might impact the organisation?
The Tyranny of Tactics
Tactical leaders — those making all the choices themselves — repel high-quality talent. Replaced by more compliant talent — those content to let choices be made for them — the organisation becomes starved of the requisite variety of perspectives needed to adapt to a world changing rapidly around them.
Trapped in an ever-tightening loop of short-term decisions, tactical leaders start jumping from fighting one fire to the next. They repeat themselves in every interaction — thinking out loud — hoping a consistent narrative helps orchestrate more coherent lines of action. Concerns about the outside world fall out of scope.
When external shocks finally hit — new events, rivals, technologies — talent turns to the leader for direction. But, overwhelmed and drained, the leader struggles to respond. The focus on quick, cost-effective tactical wins — driven by one person — has made the entire organisation fragile and now threatens its existence.
The leader starts to burn out. But if they go, they’ll leave behind an organisation that’s learned helplessness — lacking clarity about the overall direction of travel and devoid of any practice of making good choices independently. Everything had depended on one person — who’s no longer there.
Quick Test
Is the leader in your organisation involved in every decision?
Is progress stalled by the email not answered, the call not taken, or the meeting you can’t schedule?
If so, you’re a tactical organisation and the benefits are unlikely to be sustained over time.
What Next?
Crossing the river by feeling the stones.
To follow this series join the Telegram channel t.me/wardleymapping
Or subscribe to the blog https://powermaps.net/blog
If you found this post useful consider sharing it with others.
And if you’d like to think and act strategically in your organisation explore more here: https://powermaps.net
Tactics are not execution — they’re strategy in action.
Being Tactical
Tactical choices are made within the boundaries set by strategy — following a path of least resistance, with each choice moving us in the right direction, building momentum. However, the benefits of short-term, compounding wins are the reason some leaders favour being tactical over being strategic.
Privileging tactical action over strategic thinking has speed and cost advantages — resources are not wasted on yet another plan that fails to survive contact with reality. Experienced leaders consistently making good tactical decisions can even create a coherent line of action that talent understands and can follow.
Yet, the short-term benefits of being tactical can create significant disadvantages long-term. Without a strategy explaining why the leader is making such decisions, talent doesn’t learn how to make good choices themselves. They end up defaulting to the leader for every decision.
The organisation now becomes limited by the leader’s cognitive capacity: how many decisions can they make in a day? How much talent can they interact with? How much time do they have to learn what’s changing in the wider landscape and how this might impact the organisation?
The Tyranny of Tactics
Tactical leaders — those making all the choices themselves — repel high-quality talent. Replaced by more compliant talent — those content to let choices be made for them — the organisation becomes starved of the requisite variety of perspectives needed to adapt to a world changing rapidly around them.
Trapped in an ever-tightening loop of short-term decisions, tactical leaders start jumping from fighting one fire to the next. They repeat themselves in every interaction — thinking out loud — hoping a consistent narrative helps orchestrate more coherent lines of action. Concerns about the outside world fall out of scope.
When external shocks finally hit — new events, rivals, technologies — talent turns to the leader for direction. But, overwhelmed and drained, the leader struggles to respond. The focus on quick, cost-effective tactical wins — driven by one person — has made the entire organisation fragile and now threatens its existence.
The leader starts to burn out. But if they go, they’ll leave behind an organisation that’s learned helplessness — lacking clarity about the overall direction of travel and devoid of any practice of making good choices independently. Everything had depended on one person — who’s no longer there.
Quick Test
Is the leader in your organisation involved in every decision?
Is progress stalled by the email not answered, the call not taken, or the meeting you can’t schedule?
If so, you’re a tactical organisation and the benefits are unlikely to be sustained over time.
What Next?
Crossing the river by feeling the stones.
To follow this series join the Telegram channel t.me/wardleymapping
Or subscribe to the blog https://powermaps.net/blog
If you found this post useful consider sharing it with others.
And if you’d like to think and act strategically in your organisation explore more here: https://powermaps.net
