Strategy has long been the preserve of a special caste — usually far from the action — crunching data and drafting plans to be presented in pretty PowerPoint slides telling others what to do. When their plans fail on contact with reality they blame ‘execution’ by those who had been excluded from the thinking process.
But strategy is not about making plans. Strategy is about finding ways to realise your aims in a shifting landscape, using the means available. It’s a practice of learning and discovery — more art than science. It works best when the talent eventually tasked with taking action is included in the strategic thinking process.
Leverage Points
Strategy requires good choices to be made across the entire organisation, by everyone. Because strategy is what we do every day in our interactions with customers and other users — not what a small caste purporting to have preternatural powers say will happen over the next one to five years.
Good choices require a solid grounding in reality — awareness of how we create value today and how the situation is changing. Situations constantly change, creating uncertainty — but also leverage points, where small actions, performed well, can have outsized positive effects if we adapt quickly.
With maps of our landscape we can bring the collective knowledge of our entire talent base online: asking questions, challenging assumptions and discovering new moves that can shape conditions to our advantage. Strategy then becomes about comparison and choice: why make these moves here over those moves there.
Stratagems
Strategic moves consist of direct and indirect forms of action we can take to shift the balance of power in our favour. Moves consist of stratagems we can deploy to simultaneously improve our position, whilst decreasing that of our rivals:
The number of stratagems are limited — but their combination in unique ways, grounded in a specific reality, makes them deadly to rivals who are heads down following plans, lacking awareness of what’s really happening around them. This is the art of strategy — one that delivers real advantage over rivals.
Quick Test
In your next “strategy” meeting, ask:
What choices do we have for solving our most important mission today?
If you only have one choice — to launch initiative X or not — then no strategic thinking has taken place.
It’s time to start mapping.
What Next?
Testing options for action.
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
But strategy is not about making plans. Strategy is about finding ways to realise your aims in a shifting landscape, using the means available. It’s a practice of learning and discovery — more art than science. It works best when the talent eventually tasked with taking action is included in the strategic thinking process.
Leverage Points
Strategy requires good choices to be made across the entire organisation, by everyone. Because strategy is what we do every day in our interactions with customers and other users — not what a small caste purporting to have preternatural powers say will happen over the next one to five years.
Good choices require a solid grounding in reality — awareness of how we create value today and how the situation is changing. Situations constantly change, creating uncertainty — but also leverage points, where small actions, performed well, can have outsized positive effects if we adapt quickly.
With maps of our landscape we can bring the collective knowledge of our entire talent base online: asking questions, challenging assumptions and discovering new moves that can shape conditions to our advantage. Strategy then becomes about comparison and choice: why make these moves here over those moves there.
Stratagems
Strategic moves consist of direct and indirect forms of action we can take to shift the balance of power in our favour. Moves consist of stratagems we can deploy to simultaneously improve our position, whilst decreasing that of our rivals:
- As market leaders, we might use open source approaches to reduce costs for users — but also accelerate the industry’s development and increase the value of our position.
- When looking to enter a new market, we may invest in solving a seemingly unprofitable problem that will delight users — but makes us indispensable to the entire future of the industry.
- If pressured by new entrants threatening to eat away at our profitable position — we might seek to sow seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt to delay them, whilst we formulate more powerful responses.
The number of stratagems are limited — but their combination in unique ways, grounded in a specific reality, makes them deadly to rivals who are heads down following plans, lacking awareness of what’s really happening around them. This is the art of strategy — one that delivers real advantage over rivals.
Quick Test
In your next “strategy” meeting, ask:
What choices do we have for solving our most important mission today?
If you only have one choice — to launch initiative X or not — then no strategic thinking has taken place.
It’s time to start mapping.
What Next?
Testing options for action.
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
