My Problems with Strategy
Strategy is a very nice small word defined by Webster dictionary as “1 a (1) : the science and art of employing the political, economic, psychological, and military forces of a nation or group of nations to afford the maximum support to adopted policies in peace or war (2) : the science and art of military command exercised to meet the enemy in combat under advantageous conditions b : a variety of or instance of the use of strategy
2 a : a careful plan or method : a clever stratagem b : the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal
3 : an adaptation or complex of adaptations (as of behavior, metabolism, or structure) that serves or appears to serve an important function in achieving evolutionary success”.
I feel in the current scenario it is one of the ill treated and demeaned word, specially where my fellow “HumBheeHain”(read MBA) comrades. Now after seeing the summer project titles of many of my fellow beings I have come to utter dislike for this word. I don’t know why but even my summer project title also includes the word (ps: yes I made the title) and is the most frequently occurring word in my resume as well. Getting back to the point that why I would not want to be associated with anything that has something related to this generic word of “strategy”.
1- It is too easy and non-challenging; almost every B-school student does it in his summer internship after the first year. You know things like “Strategy Formulation”, “Strategy Evolution” and other things of sorts.
2- Every company on the block does it; everyone seems to have it, more or less on the similar line. Everyone talks about customers, service, growth, market leader etc. even the ones who file for the bankruptcy. So why to be involved with one which is not the differentiator.
3- Once can not make their strategy independently without the help of someone. Either they need summer interns from the business schools or the glorified strategic consultants which are flocking our campuses on day to day basis. So it is a job from the lower end of the value chain which can easily be outsourced.
4- It partners us with our own competitors and might lead to risks. For example both Wipro & TCS are a strategic partner to General motors which also make them strategic partner to each other. I assume that strategy would be following the transitive laws of multiplication. After all strategy should be objective in nature.
5- Another thing which really irritates me about this word is it starts with an S (Read : ass) and ends in Y (Read: Why). May be because who starts it is a real donkey in himself and some why’s are always left in the end. Well why do I need an ass to make a plan which in the end would still leave some why? I swear I have no clue.
6- When I search in google the “strategy failure” I get more than 3 times more results from when I search “strategy success”. Now why would I like to spend my time doing something which is more associated with failure than to success.
8- If I rearrange the letters of the word strategy the words I get are grayest, gyrates, & targets all three such depressing words so now you would know how much depressing league this words belong to.
9- Another reason is that strategies are sometimes so stupid and they make you wonder if it is worth it, like some of you are wondering over my attention grabbing strategy to miss seven on the numbering list and cursing my strategy to gain attention
10- The only thing that is good with strategy is sometimes it works for no apparent reason, like some of you are looking up paying close attention to the crap I have written to see if I have really missed out seven.
So now you know why I am not really entertained by the idea of a job at strategic position in a strategic company having strategic clients asking it perform strategic roles for them and in turn giving me strategic growth paths in my career.
