et us look at strategy and tactics. Suppose we have perfect foresight, then strategy is relatively easy. We look ahead with our perfect foresight and determine where we want to be. We then produce a plan that will drive the organisation towards this ideal position. In such a world, the tactical plans are a ‘drill-down’ of the strategic plan and everything dovetails neatly. Strategy implementation is just ensuring the organisation conforms to the overall strategic plan. Indeed, this is the assumptions madeSome of you may have seen articles that I have posted challenging those who would degrade the role and status of the terms manager and management. In those articles and comments I said I would post further articles on strategic management. This article is the first of, hopefully, a series of articles on strategy and strategic management.

This particular article describes some general concepts, drawing on insights from General Systems Theory that may be useful in strategy formulation and strategy implementation. I am not going to produce a list of activities that you must undertake to do strategy. I am not even going to recommend a method (I hate the term methodology incorrectly applied – methodology is the study of method!). Instead, this article concentrates on underlying concepts that will be useful to anyone with responsibilities for strategy formulation and strategy implementation in a business organisational context. These concepts are applicable to both commercial and not for profit organisations.

I shall use the definition of strategy and tactics given by M P Schutzenberger and his concepts of “flexibility” and “span of foresight” and show how these can be applied in strategic management and how these can be useful in supplementing your preferred strategy method.

M P Schutzenerger (“A tentative Classification of Goal Seeking Behaviour” - Psychology Review Vol.63 {1956}) defines a tactic as a means of choice which proceeds according to a criterion of optimality that is applied locally, stage by stage. He defines a strategy as a means of choice which takes into account the situation as a whole. In this paper he also defines two concepts; the span of foresight and flexibility. The span of foresight is how far you can make predictions ahead of time. Flexibility is how quickly your organisation can move from one plan to another plan.

Before we look at how these concepts may assist us in strategy formulation and implementation, it is worth exploring these concepts further.

Let us look at strategy and tactics. Suppose we have perfect foresight, then strategy is relatively easy. We look ahead with our perfect foresight and determine where we want to be. We then produce a plan that will drive the organisation towards this ideal position. In such a world, the tactical plans are a ‘drill-down’ of the strategic plan and everything dovetails neatly. Strategy implementation is just ensuring the organisation conforms to the overall strategic plan. Indeed, this is the assumptions made

lementation. I am not going to produce a list of activities that you must undertake to do strategy. I am not even going to recommend a method (I hate the term methodology incorrectly applied – methodology is the study of method!). Instead, this article concentrates on underlying concepts that will be useful to anyone with responsibilities for strategy formulation and strategy implementation in a business organisational context. These concepts are applicable to both commercial and not for profit organisations.

I shall use the definition of strategy and tactics given by M P Schutzenberger and his concepts of “flexibility” and “span of foresight” and show how these can be applied in strategic management and how these can be useful in supplementing your preferred strategy method.

M P Schutzenerger (“A tentative Classification of Goal Seeking Behaviour” - Psychology Review Vol.63 {1956}) defines a tactic as a means of choice which proceeds according to a criterion of optimality that is applied locally, stage by stage. He defines a strategy as a means of choice which takes into account the situation as a whole. In this paper he also defines two concepts; the span of foresight and flexibility. The span of foresight is how far you can make predictions ahead of time. Flexibility is how quickly your organisation can move from one plan to another plan.

Before we look at how these concepts may assist us in strategy formulation and implementation, it is worth exploring these concepts further.

Let us look at strategy and tactics. Suppose we have perfect foresight, then strategy is relatively easy. We look ahead with our perfect foresight and determine where we want to be. We then produce a plan that will drive the organisation towards this ideal position. In such a world, the tactical plans are a ‘drill-down’ of the strategic plan and everything dovetails neatly. Strategy implementation is just ensuring the organisation conforms to the overall strategic plan. Indeed, this is the assumptions made

ons.

I shall use the definition of strategy and tactics given by M P Schutzenberger and his concepts of “flexibility” and “span of foresight” and show how these can be applied in strategic management and how these can be useful in supplementing your preferred strategy method.

M P Schutzenerger (“A tentative Classification of Goal Seeking Behaviour” - Psychology Review Vol.63 {1956}) defines a tactic as a means of choice which proceeds according to a criterion of optimality that is applied locally, stage by stage. He defines a strategy as a means of choice which takes into account the situation as a whole. In this paper he also defines two concepts; the span of foresight and flexibility. The span of foresight is how far you can make predictions ahead of time. Flexibility is how quickly your organisation can move from one plan to another plan.

Before we look at how these concepts may assist us in strategy formulation and implementation, it is worth exploring these concepts further.

Let us look at strategy and tactics. Suppose we have perfect foresight, then strategy is relatively easy. We look ahead with our perfect foresight and determine where we want to be. We then produce a plan that will drive the organisation towards this ideal position. In such a world, the tactical plans are a ‘drill-down’ of the strategic plan and everything dovetails neatly. Strategy implementation is just ensuring the organisation conforms to the overall strategic plan. Indeed, this is the assumptions made

lly, stage by stage. He defines a strategy as a means of choice which takes into account the situation as a whole. In this paper he also defines two concepts; the span of foresight and flexibility. The span of foresight is how far you can make predictions ahead of time. Flexibility is how quickly your organisation can move from one plan to another plan.

Before we look at how these concepts may assist us in strategy formulation and implementation, it is worth exploring these concepts further.

Let us look at strategy and tactics. Suppose we have perfect foresight, then strategy is relatively easy. We look ahead with our perfect foresight and determine where we want to be. We then produce a plan that will drive the organisation towards this ideal position. In such a world, the tactical plans are a ‘drill-down’ of the strategic plan and everything dovetails neatly. Strategy implementation is just ensuring the organisation conforms to the overall strategic plan. Indeed, this is the assumptions made

et us look at strategy and tactics. Suppose we have perfect foresight, then strategy is relatively easy. We look ahead with our perfect foresight and determine where we want to be. We then produce a plan that will drive the organisation towards this ideal position. In such a world, the tactical plans are a ‘drill-down’ of the strategic plan and everything dovetails neatly. Strategy implementation is just ensuring the organisation conforms to the overall strategic plan. Indeed, this is the assumptions made when we do ‘corporate plans’.

In normal business corporate planning, the Board and the CFO or FD produces a set of assumptions and each subunit produces a three year forecast that is aggregated. There is a a process (either negotiation or tell) that ensures that the plans are consistent resulting in a 3 year forecast of which the next year’s forecast becomes the operational budget against which performance is measured. Note, this method assumes that we can predict with some certainty at least twelve months ahead if not three years ahead.

Suppose we cannot predict with certainty that far ahead. What can we do? How can we do strategy in these circumstances? Well it turns out we can even if we cannot predict perfectly we can still do some strategic planning. If the environment is stochastic (this is a fancy mathematical term that means there are random elements) then Schutzenberger showed in such an environment, the optimal strategy is just the simple tactic of doing one’s best in the local situation. He illustrates this with an example.

Suppose a dog is running to meet its owner in some open ground. Most dogs would follow the line of sight to its owner. If its owner is walking in a straight line at a constant speed, the optimal path is not the path the dog would take but it can be determined by simple mathematics (basically a solution of two simultaneous equations). The optimal path is a straight line that intersects. Dogs don’t do maths so adopting the simple tactic of always running to its owner will get the goal it wants. However, if the owner is pacing backwards and forwards at random, it can be shown mathematically that the dog’s tactic of always running towards its owner is the optimal strategy. The tactic becomes the strategy.

In real life, there are many instances where we can’t predict precisely how things will work out but we can see an underlying structure with a random element. Examples would include sales, patients attending casualty, help desk calls etc., in a given per