Although strategy and tactics originated in warfare, they have become a modus operandi in every domain where purposeful action and competitive advantage matter. Without a strategy, an organization is like a boat adrift at sea with no sense of direction and at the mercy of the sea and wind. Also, without tactics, it is like a boat with the wrong paddles and crew, and is unable to move towards its destination. Knowledge strategy brings the right strategy and tactics to bear in achieving a desired outcome in an optimal way. To be a good sailor, you need this dual working together so you are not at the mercy of the sea or wind, but rather use them as your ally in navigating the voyage and getting to your destination – strategy to chart the course and tactics to harness the sea and wind. Even when responding to immediate needs, this alignment ensures that short-term actions do not come at the expense of the ultimate destination. This brings us to the vision. Before you have a strategy, you need to have a clear vision of the future to be created – otherwise, every good thing appears to be the right thing. Vision prevents mistaking movement for progress or assuming something is good without understanding its true utility or burden on the journey. A vision must also have a strategic intent – a powerful, achievable, and motivated stretch goal. This becomes your north star that guides you to your destination. Ultimately, a key component of strategy and tactics is recognizing that not every good thing is beneficial to the vision, thereby employing the act of strategic discrimination.
Strategy defines and determines what to focus on for a desired long-term goal and outcome, while tactics represent the optimal methods for executing a strategy. Together, they balance long-term intent with short-term execution, turning ambition into results and the intended outcome. Yet, strategy is often confused with planning, and tactics with execution, even though they are distinct. Strategy is a high-level, overarching approach to achieve a long-term goal, while planning is a detailed process of outlining specific actions and resources needed to implement a strategy. In essence, strategy defines what needs to be achieved, and planning explains how to achieve it. Likewise, tactics are the specific actions and methods used to realize a strategy, while execution involves putting tactics into action to produce results. Think of strategy as the overall plan or design, planning as organizing the necessary steps, tactics as the tools and actions within a plan, and execution as the actual work of using tools and steps.
However, the word strategy is often misused and overused to describe any approach, analysis, or idea. This has turned strategy into a buzzword rather than a unifying framework. Many organizations label everything as strategy to the point that anytime you hear strategy, it just becomes background noise. This misunderstanding of what strategy is has diluted the understanding and application of strategy to mean things like planning, analysis, even tactics, and other components of what strategy relies on to turn vision into reality. However, these individual components themselves are not a strategy because the whole is more than the individual parts. Like the human body, you need all its parts to function well as a coherent system. You cannot say the head or legs or heart is the only thing needed, but you need all the parts acting in unison, and only then does it become a complete entity and a well-functioning organism. Strategy then becomes the internal working mechanism, and tactics are the external actions.
The relationship between strategy and tactics is a dynamic dance that begins with the vision – the picture of what you aim to achieve at the end. With that picture in mind, you define what approach is needed and the resources it will require to make it actualized. Vision sets the stage, strategy defines the choreography, and tactics bring it to life – these form the trifecta of chicanery in achieving a goal. However, a strategy approach can be theoretical, and to create a more practical approach, you need to have the inventory of your environment, the knowledge strategy. This helps in creating the optimal strategy that takes into account the resources you have, can acquire, and what constraints you must navigate, and not wishful thinking that becomes an abstract plan and light-years away from reality. A good strategist also requires being a realist, because hope is not a strategy but a wish. Similarly, a good tactician requires being a pragmatist, because intentions alone do not yield needed results. Using a knowledge strategy, a strategy becomes optimal as it takes into consideration both internal and external factors that become relevant in its implementation and execution. Next is the planning of the strategy and how it should be implemented. Tactics then translate the planning into actionable tasks by understanding the tactical capacity required to produce results. Once that is accessed and aligned, the next step is to develop a dynamic roadmap, which involves sequencing tasks based on the internal and external factors such as resources, frameworks, synergies, et cetera. After the dynamic roadmap is designed and created, the execution phase begins with risk management serving as the fuel that keeps progress moving forward.
Neither strategy nor tactics alone is sufficient to deliver the desired outcome of a vision, because both go hand-in-hand to bring a vision to realization. If you have a good strategy but bad tactics, it remains just a dream; and if you have a bad strategy but good tactics, it becomes a waste of time. To bring a vision to fruition, you need both good strategy and tactics to operate in tandem, as neither exists in isolation. A strategy needs to have some elements of tactics to ensure practicality, and a tactic also needs to have some elements of strategy to ensure alignment. As strategy looks forward to tactics, tactics also look backwards to strategy. This is the symphony of synchronization – where strategy and tactics move together in rhythm instead of operating independently. Like any dance, there are other factors involved, like music, environment, place, occasion, et cetera. And in the entanglement between strategy and tactics, these are the vision, knowledge strategy, planning, implementation, tactical capacity, tasks, roadmaps, execution, and others. Ultimately, strategy and tactics are inseparable partners as both are complementary to each other. Strategy needs tactics to get things done right, and tactics need strategy to know the right things to do. Only by working together do they transform a vision into reality, and only in concert do they turn aspiration into achievement.
