Don't Play To Win – Win To Play
Strategy Isn’t a Means To an End
I wrote this article not to criticize Roger Martin’s approach to strategy (as it may seem from the title). However, I see that many strategy theorists misuse it by claiming that strategy is a ‘means to an end.’ I fundamentally disagree with this claim, which is what this article is about.
If there were a competition for the most dangerous misconception in the business world, my favorite would be the idea that strategy is a way to reach long-term goals.
We don’t play to win. We need to win to continue playing.
Every startup sooner or later becomes a business – even if it is only a solo entrepreneurship. And any business needs a strategy – it goes without saying.
However, many entrepreneurs believe that strategy is a means to an end, a way to realize their ambitions.
And this is a dangerous misbelief.
An ongoing race
Imagine you’re in a car race. The rules are quite unusual. First, you never know when the race ends. Second, your task is not only to move faster than others – you also have to upgrade your car along the way.
You can’t stop even to modernize your car for a second because your rivals don’t. And every change you make must boost your car’s performance.
It may sound strange, yet this is what any CEO’s or entrepreneur’s job looks like.
What is more critical: steering the wheel or providing technical improvements?
There are three major problems of perceiving a strategy only as a way to reach long-term goals.
Unlike in sports, business leaders compete and prepare to compete at the same time
We downplay the significance of strategic work by calling it ’a tool.’
We need to think strategically every single day, not for a couple of months per year
Athletes’ strategy and business strategy
“As long as there are games to play it is not over.”
Alex Ferguson, former Manchester United coach
When you watch an athlete winning the Olympic Games or a football team snatching a victory in the tournament, you see only the tip of the iceberg. Sportspeople spend years training and developing strategies for the sake of a few brief moments of glory.
For them, strategy is a way to prepare for the primary task in their professional lives – competing in major tournaments and winning.
However, though sports and business have a lot in common, they are different.
Here are the main distinctions:
Athletes must defeat their rivals. Businesses have to please their customers.
Sporting competitions are relatively rare moments when sportspeople need to be fully focused on the competition. Businesses must be focused on customers 24/7.
As Simon Sinek has put it, “In finite games, like football or chess, the players are known, the rules are fixed, and the endpoint is clear. The winners and losers are easily identified. In infinite games, like business or politics or life itself, the players come and go, the rules are changeable, and there is no defined endpoint.”
Sports is a finite game, at least for a particular athlete. Sooner or later, they will have to end their career.
Business is an infinite game. CEOs or executives come and go, but they must think longer-term and prepare their enterprises for life beyond their careers.
An athlete’s life is clearly divided into two completely different parts – participation in tournaments and preparation for them.
A business leader’s life means taking part in a competition and getting prepared for it at the same time.
Is strategy only ’a tool’?
“The principle of planning does not lie in the plans that it produces but in the process of producing them.”
Russell Ackoff, A Concept of Corporate Planning, 1970
Words matter.
When we call something a ‘tool,’ we symbolically underrate its value.
For athletes, the periods of preparation and training are critically important. If they don’t work hard during them, they don’t stand a chance to win a championship or the Olympic Games.
But, ongoing strategic thinking is an integral part of the job for executives and entrepreneurs. Developing a strategy has inherent value, and it is not an exercise we do once in a while.
Many businesspeople mistakenly believe that their ultimate goal is to earn profits, or achieve some bold goals, or increase their company’s market cap.
All of the above are essential tasks but not crucial.
An average sports coach wants to win a game.
A good sports coach dreams about winning a tournament.
A great sports coach builds a great team. A great team may lose a game or two or even a championship. But eventually, it becomes a long-term winner.
As Jim Collins would probably put it, a great company is ‘built to last.’
Since business is an ‘infinite game,’ a business leader shouldn’t consider strategy as a preparation phase for a great leapfrog or for getting to a particular point in the future (a strategic goal).
An entrepreneur must consider strategy as the process of continuous’ racing car upgrade’ or business improvement. They can set goals and celebrate big and small wins. But the process itself isn’t less important than its outcomes.
And a victory isn’t only a reason to raise a glass of champagne. It brings in precious resources, such as profits, and the company can reinvest in further development.
We have to work on strategy every single day
Some theorists believe we live in a WUCA, BANI, or even TUNA world. Experts never tire of reminding us that strategy is not a three-year plan. We need to update it regularly.
But it is only part of the problem.
As a strategy consultant, I’ve seen many cases when C-level executives considered strategic discussions as an annoying distraction, diverting them from the ‘real business.’ “When will we stop deciding and start acting?” they impatiently asked.
William Edwards Deming’s name is closely associated with the idea of the PDCA (or, as he preferred, PDSA – Plan-Do-Study-Act) circle. This concept has become very popular among managers and business consultants.
Do always follows Plan, and it seems logical. Though we often forget about it, thinking and planning before doing it often helps us achieve our goals quickly and in a more efficient fashion.
This logic works perfectly when we plan simple actions or even complex projects.
However, strategy is a too multifaceted project. Whatever we plan, we can be sure that something (or, rather, everything) will go wrong.
Therefore, we can’t rely on this Plan-Do-Plan-Do approach regarding business strategy. We have to engage in both planning and execution simultaneously (those of you who prefer not to use ‘planning’ in the context of ‘strategy’ can substitute this word with your preference).
By saying that a strategy is 'a means to an end,’ we not only reduce the meaning of a strategic process. We implant in subordinates the mistaken belief that they can stop their activities for some time for planning, but then, when the strategy is approved, they only have to do ‘doing.’
Strategy is what we do every day.
Conclusion
Strategic thinking and strategy have their inherent value. Paraphrasing Dwight D. Eisenhower, we may say that strategy is useless, but strategizing is indispensable.
Many thanks for supporting my modest efforts.
Good analogies. Thanks for another great article.