Sometimes the thought of strategy work can be daunting.
You haven’t created a strategy.
You haven’t held a strategy role with a strategy title.
You don’t consider yourself a strategic thinker.
In fact, maybe that’s a label you don’t aspire to.
Yet, we all work on strategies every day without even realizing it.
What to wear. What to eat. What to do on the weekend.
While they seem like decisions of everyday life, there is strategy baked into each one.
In fact, using “dinner” is a good illustration of the steps of strategy.
The Strategy of Dinner
We start with a goal of having dinner every night.
Then we consider the context with questions like:
What is our budget? How much time do we typically have?
The strategies are then the paths to achieving the goal while keeping the context in mind.
In the dinner example, we may come up with several strategies:
Carry out on busy nights but keep to a minimum to save on costs.
Crock pot dinners for ease and cost efficiency.
Recipes we want to try for evenings with a bit more time.
Go to meals like spaghetti or burgers on the grill for something quick.
As we enter each week, we turn these strategies into plans.
Making decisions on the plan for each night and shopping for groceries we will need.
As the bumps arrive during the week, the strategies provide a “Plan B”.
For example, that schedule change that shifts the planned recipe night for carryout.
Or the cancelled event that turns a quick meal night into one that tries a new recipe.
Your Turn
Does the illustration of dinner help break down the difference between a strategy and a plan?
Do you feel like your career has a strategy?
How could the framework help you right now?