E2: We've Misunderstood Strategy

Consider for a moment: does Apple publicize its strategy on its website and in the media? Do you know of corporate examples where the company strategy is visibly broadcasted? Whatever Apple’s roadmap for its future, the public and its competitors know when Apple wants it to know. There are oohhs and aahhs when the new iPhone launches every fall, but only rampant speculation and some well-placed leaks preceding those announcements.

So consider again, why do Apple and other companies keep their strategies private? And, why would independent schools and non-profits so publicly announce their strategic plans? Is it possible that as an industry we have misunderstood this notion of strategy?

Volumes have been written about strategy over the years and we have yet to change the process of strategic planning in our schools. Strategic plans, like so many mission statements, sound alike. But why do they sound alike? Strategy, at its core, is meant to be unique to each institution. It should be founded upon core values and the organization’s own market position relative to its competition. It should present a holistic view, an integrated set of choices grounded in the school’s purpose (or mission) statement and clear about the gaps and misalignments between stakeholder expectations and experience. Strategy should strengthen the alignment and close the gaps. Shoulds. Therein lies the issue. We know the “should be’s” and still fall in the trap of repeating the past while expecting a different outcome.

Strategic plans, like so many mission statements, read alike because they do not say no to enough things. Strategy, by definition, requires hard choices. There are trade-offs to every strategic decision and anyone who wants it all will fail at getting it all, and likely do an average or mediocre job at whatever they undertake. Saying yes to something means saying no to something else; and those no’s should be clear to all and not simply assumed. You know it’s a hard choice when you struggle with it, go back and forth on it and between it and your other options, when you order and reorder, prioritize and reprioritize, and second guess more than a few times. But once you look at your list, and understand the advantages it will offer and sustain you over your competition, and recruit and retain loyalists to your community precisely because it strengths your promise to them and closes any gaps in experience, the hard choices will be more easily justifiable. Now you have focus and a good strategy, which acknowledges and embraces resource constraints, instead of trying to eliminate them.

Strategy is also different from vision and mission and, yet, few plans differentiate appropriately between them. What stands as vision will be referred to as the plan, while the plan - implementation details - is yet to be built. Strategy is also not the same as a strategic plan. The phrase “strategic plan” itself has come under a lot of ridicule because the two words - “strategic” and “plan” are inherently different, even if related. For example, your mission is your purpose for existing, the vision is the destination, strategy outlines your choices that will most urgently help you get to your destination, and the plan provides the roadmap you will take to execute on said strategy. The plan goes further, of course, and details the twists and turns, the drivers and the passengers, the different modes of transportation, and the resources you will allocate and build, to help you reach where you want to go. Along the way, you will encounter speed bumps and potholes and stop signs, there will be construction and road blocks, even a traffic jam. In the face of these hindrances, mission and vision remain inflexible while strategy is iterative and the plan is flexible.

So if we pull all this together into one coherent definition of strategy, it’s this: “Strategy is an integrated set of [hard] choices that collectively positions an organization and creates a sustainable advantage over its competition in the marketplace.”

The definition itself needs additional breakdown. Here are a few of those questions every organization must ask at the beginning and design the process to answer them during the needs assessment:

• Who will make those choices? Who gets to decide what’s a hard choice and what isn’t?
• What is your current market position? Does it align with your core purpose for being? For example, a La Quinta Inn that tries to be a Ritz Carlton will fail for many reasons, but primarily because La Quinta never aspired to become a Ritz Carlton. It occupies a very different space and would, therefore, define its competition and competitive advantage very differently from the Ritz.
• Who is your competition? And, for what and whom are you competing?
• What is the market you serve?

• What is your competitive advantage? This is not something you excel at once but it’s something you repeatedly do better than anyone else in your market.

  • Is your advantage equally experienced by all of your stakeholders? Who benefits and who is not? Where are those gaps and why do they exist?

• What needs integration? What will you leave behind on the cutting floor when it’s time to “edit the film”?

It’s a good strategy when it answers all of these questions with vulnerability and authenticity, and because the answers will be hard and will necessitate difficult choices and embrace constraints, strategy is something fully known only to the operational and trustee leadership, not something to be waved in public. The leadership can, and should, extract marketing and communications elements from the company’s strategy but it’s a distinction with a very clear difference. So, like Apple, only when you’re ready to unveil the next iPhone or talk about the transition from Intel to Apple Silicon chips, celebrate and share in the success and outcome of your strategy and detail the impact on your stakeholders, but keep the rest private.

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• Read episode one of my series on “What’s wrong with strategic planning?”
• Definition of strategy adapted from Roger L. Martin, “Don’t Let Strategy Become Planning,” Harvard Business Review, February 2013.
• A tactical note: I've moved the publication of this newsletter/blog away from Substack and over to Ghost.org.