The URL for my personal web site where the strategy paper Jack Ring
mentions is
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
Once there, scroll down to the articles link, click on that, and you'll
find yourself on the articles site.
Now some related comments. Jack is talking about strategy in its most
basic sense, as when it was originally borrowed from the military. In this
sense, strategy refers to how some particular end is to be realized. As
Jack notes, strategy is mainly about the deployment of resources. Tactics,
of course, is about their employment. Together, strategy and tactics
bridge the gap between ends and means. Again, militarily speaking,
strategy used to refer to the arrangements made before the enemy was
engaged and tactics referred to the actions taken after the enemy was
engaged. As Jack is suggesting, strategy has more to do with the
irreversible commitment of resources than it does time.
The semantics issue is not one I want to get caught up in, mostly because
I'm not a semanticist. I will, however, agree with Jack on this point:
long-range planning, that is, planning with a time horizon of greater than
five years, is often confused with or equated with strategic planning.
I'll also take issue with Jack regarding the meaning of "strategic." The
basic and primary meaning of "strategic" is "pertaining to, characterized
by, or of the nature of strategy." It also means "important or essential to
strategy." And, it means "an integral part of a stratagem" (which is a
ruse intended to deceive the enemy). So, I don't share Jack's view that
there ain't no such thing as a strategic plan. Where Jack and I do come
back into alignment again is that what most people mean when they use the
term "strategic plan" is a long-range operating plan.
One of the reasons this all gets so messy is that people tend to use the
terms strategy and strategic without bothering to define them. Because
people have and invoke different meanings for these terms, conversation
goes downhill in a hurry. In a very practical vein, it is very important in
discussions of strategy inside a company to be clear about the distinctions
between and among strategy in general, corporate strategy, competitive
strategy, and grand strategy. Quickly, the main distinctions are:
Strategy, used generally, refers to how an end will be achieved.
Corporate strategy, a la Kenneth Andrews, refers to decisions
about industries, markets, businesses, products, and services.
Competitive strategy, a la Michael Porter, refers to the basis
on which a company will compete.
More at the URL cited above...
Fred Nickols, Executive Director
Strategic Planning & Management Services
Educational Testing Service [01-D]
Princeton, NJ 08541
Tel = 609.734.5077 Fax = 609.734.5590
e-mail =
fnickols@ets.org
Views expressed are the author's, not ETS's.