Why is Strategy important?

Strategy is about how we get to the future. It deploys best practice, draws on the lessons from the past, uses sophisticated methods and accurate data to anticipate changes and variations to achieve goals. And it has delivered our technological world with its amazing transportation and communication systems, given us astounding medical progress, sent missions into space, and much more. But still there are huge sections of society in the dark. Those that consider strategy to be in the realm of technologists, beyond their cognisance or outside of their remit, and those that find it anathema; an alien approach that impinges upon their values or belief systems. Whatever the obstacles there is vast ignorance that needs to be addressed. This is QV’s raison d’être.

Where we are today, is of course, yesterday’s future. If only we could turn back time we could avoid the mistakes, prevent the consequences, and have a better now. Because we now have better understanding, more accurate data this information would enable us to achieve better results. If it were only that simple! But reality is uncompromising.

Reality is what happens whether we like it or not. Fantasists and believers from “infallible” Pope Urban VIII, who condemned Galileo in 1633, to King Canute who commanded the tide to recede, each discovered that reality inevitably arrived to confound their omnipotence. While Canute only suffered embarrassment and got his feet wet, it took the Catholic church 350 years to acknowledge that Galileo was right, the earth did go around the sun, and reason trumped dogma. As Shakespeare wrote in the Merchant of Venice “the truth will out”

While strategy is about how we get to the future, it is NOT about predicting the future, soothsayers, fortune-tellers and mystics are not on this agenda.

The foundation of strategy is evidenced-based truth. Facts and proven data provide the basis for planning, and with today’s technology vast resources are available to enhance performance. Scenarios and assumptions can be tested, contingencies drawn up and processes refined based on known circumstance. This is not a black art, this is established practice, refined and developed in certain sectors, yet excluded or misapplied in others. This will be explored in QV.

The future is of course also on the agenda of strategy deniers, and those with scant understanding. Across the planet powerful leaders and rulers take their followers towards a future based on threats or promises, and even in the so-called enlightened world performances in our democratically managed governance suffer from short-termism and vague transparency. As politicians love to tell us, only hindsight is 20:20 vision. This comment is frequently used to deflect challenges to their dubious predictions.

Our accumulated data provides historic evidence of our achievements and failures, and challenges us to understand both and do better. This is where strategy gets controversial. “Success has many fathers, and failure is a bastard” Human frailties deny mistakes, bury evil, and claim the glory. History is written by the victors, the vanquished are demeaned, and propaganda presented as the “truth”. And then there is fantasy! It’s a human trait to cling to beliefs that we would like to be true. From horoscopes to Santa Claus, potions to poltergeists, and many other areas of culture, theology, and countless other ologies, we are creatures prone to self-deception. We call them belief systems, ideologies, and religions, and we enshrined their practices in rules, laws, and legislation. These are issues that obstruct strategy, and they will be addressed within QV.