Is strategy about choosing to be different? Is it being the low-cost provider in the market? What about competitive advantage? How about a framework for making decisions? Marketing? Acquisitions? Adapting? Agility?
Put “definition of strategy” in your search bar and you’ll get over 2.7 billion results. Read 1 billion of them and you’ll still wonder what strategy is.
Is it any wonder alignment is the number one strategy problem for CEOs? How can your organization engage and align to strategy when they don’t even know what it is?
Here’s a definition of strategy that’s easy to learn and everyone in your organization should know.
Strategy is choosing a path to achieve your goals.
All those other things? Those are characteristics of strategy. Saying “different” is strategy is like saying "sprinkles" is a donut.
Getting everyone in your organization on the same page about the definition of strategy will begin to clear the fog and help them to align and engage.
Now excuse me. I’m going to go get a “sprinkles” to have with my “black”.
