Who is a Strategist?

A strategist is a disciplined thinker who sees all angles, weighs possibilities and probabilities, assesses situations deeply, quickly and accurately, sees around corners and develops a guiding policy that solves the situation or creates value.

All the value in the world is created first by thought.

Disciplined thought.

To create more value, whether as businesses or individuals, we search for where to find it. How to find it. How to create it.

And creating value is becoming ever more complex. How do we achieve growth?

Because the world is changing faster than ever, and new things are created every day. Because there are more options than ever — which means more competition. Because consumers are more aware and more sophisticated. Because there is more joblessness than ever. Because the economy is more complicated than ever. Because there is more regulation than ever…

Getting out of undesirable situations is also becoming more complicated. How do we get out of a recession? How do we reduce lawlessness? How do we reduce churn?

Increased complexity causes more uncertainty, more ambiguity, more anxiety, and more pressure.

There are many solutions to these kinds of problems. But the most important is this: the ability to find and create solutions.

Finding and creating solutions is not easy. That’s why organizations spend a lot to find and create solutions, and that’s why most investments in that regard fail. If it were easy, no companies would ever shut down or downsize. Every innovation would fly. Every cent spent on advertising would bring returns. Every idea would succeed.

Let’s talk about ideas. Great ideas create brilliance. But great incongruous ideas create great chaos. Long term success is not the result of singular great ideas, but of coherent ideas in a good and singular direction. Anybody can think ideas. But very few can create a strong direction — this is the hard part.

Direction. That’s what strategy is.

Consider the example of a ship caught in a bad storm. Assume it is also leaking. Whatever is standing between us and our destination is this storm — we must survive it. What do we do?

The captain will diagnose the situation and spell out a general policy like “We have 30 minutes before we start to sink, we must get out of this storm quick and hard — which means we turn sharp East immediately which will set us off course, then we pivot back to track once we have gotten out of here.”

Then the rest of the crew can think of a set of ideas that will make that policy work. What can we do to hasten the East turn in the storm? How do we avoid accidents? At what point do we pivot back, and so forth.

Inaccurate example. But you get the point.

That’s the relationship between strategy and ideas. Ideas follow strategy. Ideas implement the strategy. Strategy is the general guiding policy that gets you from point A to B.

As I mentioned before, however, most situations are complex and / or complicated. Hence the need for disciplined thinking that sees all angles, weighs possibilities and probabilities, assesses situations deeply, quickly and accurately, sees around corners and develops a guiding policy that solves the situation or creates value. That is the role of a strategist.

They may not have the title of a strategist — in fact, strategy roles are hidden under different roles and titles. What’s important to remember is that organizations need this skill.