Good Strategy Saves Lives, Makes Money and Provides Balance

Strategy is an art to be mastered, not an academic discipline. Mastery can be gained, through practice, dsicipline and innovative learning.

(PRWEB) December 21, 2004 -- Strategy. The word makes a lot of people feel a bit uncomfortable. This is because, for the most part, strategy is a misunderstood phenomenon and as a result it is a tool that very few people use effectively. Jon Foster-Pedley, director of the Strategy Master Academy in South Africa which focuses on developing advanced skills in strategy, is helping change all this. People and not profits are at the heart of good strategy.

If people aren't intimidated by strategy then people are frankly bored by it. For too many, strategy is something cold and sterile that is written on a piece of paper but that has no real application.

In fact, this perception of strategy is not incorrect. An estimated 80% of strategic plans fail because nobody knows how to implement them. No wonder then that strategy is usually relegated to the dusty shelves of most people's minds.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Strategy is in fact an integral part of all of our lives and an underestimated and powerful force that can help individuals and organisations to be more productive and more creative. Good strategy saves lives, makes money, provides balanced and sustainable lives.

More than that, everybody has it within them to be a master strategist and to bring strategy to life. To unleash their strategic potential, there are three key practices that individuals can adopt.

Top of the list is that people simply need to reframe the way they think and do strategy.

Strategy not a set of sterile plans, its a creative force. We have to move from seeing strategy as planning and as something that is contained within a document to strategy as intelligence and something that is contained within people.

At its very simplest - strategy is about how individuals and organisations plan to get from one point to the next - and then how they actually do that.

Notice that deciding how you are going to do something is not outsourced to a specialist. It is something that anybody can do.

Most people are already strategists but they don't know it. Think about it. In most things you do you'll have a mental model of what the effect will be - a theory of cause-and-effect. That's strategy.

Strategy is about acting, reacting to feedback from your environment and adjusting your behaviour accordingly as you move towards a desired end result - your intention.

Looked at like this - strategy is not a science or a theory - something that can be gained by reading a book or taught in a classroom. Strategy is more of an art form. It is a skill and like all skills it can be acquired.

Thus the second key thing that people can do to improve their strategic ability is to practice. All people can hone their skills and actively improve their strategic ability. In the same way that a musician will practice scales, a strategist can practice strategy in order to refine their technique.

Its and old adage but a true one - that practice makes perfect. Another way of looking at it is it is better to fail early and often. If something is worth doing then it is worth doing it badly to begin with.

It is with this in mind that the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business is launching a brand new concept in short courses in 2005 - a strategy master academy. The idea is that the master academy will provide a controlled and confidential environment in which people can feel safe enough to try things out and build confidence. And like any skill, confidence can make the difference between success and failure.

And the third shift that people can implement to clear the way for a rush of strategic energy is to ensure that the environment that they are in is supportive of creativity.

According to Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Classes, a tolerant environment that values innovation and diversity is one of three enablers of creativity which in turn, he shows, is a key driver of economic growth.

Business literature is littered with examples of companies from the Hewlett Packards to the small home-grown businesses that have recognised and enshrined this principle and reaped the benefits as a result.

Undoubtedly unless people are given the space to be a bit playful with their strategic thinking and can dare to think creatively about how to solve problems, then that master strategist will never truly emerge and our people, our organisations and society will be the poorer for it.

Jon Foster Pedley is Academic and Learning Director of the Strategy Master Academy at the UCT Graduate School of Business. You can contact him at jon@consiliari.com

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