One of the recurring topics at Red Planet Dust is about my views on “strategy”. I have summarised my growing list of posts on the subject here.

I was determined to start with the easy ones first and then move on to the views that will need some more pondering by the reader. But today I realised that I have to bring one of the most important aspects of strategy creation and execution to your attention before anything else, risky as it is to loose some of my audience in the process…

What companies are considered “tech-companies” and why? I full-heartedly agree with David Yanofsky:

The moniker says nothing about what type of company it actually is, only that it is a business that uses at least one technology to provide its product or service.
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To stay competitive in today’s marketplaces, every company, by the current standard, could be called a tech company, which of course, is another way of saying that none of them should be.

In recent posts, I have to admit with red blushes of shame on my cheeks, I used the T-term exuberantly: “tech companies”, “tech giants”, “tech industry” etc. For lack of a better word, maybe even the lack of a clear notion of what to bring across, and not wanting to spend a whole day writing a single post I pressed forward, using the T-word lazily. Deeming it not important enough to be more precise for it did not interfere with the one single message I wanted to get across in the first place. No harm done. Except for the inexcusable lazy use of the T-term and the belittling of my audience.

What does this all have to do with “strategy”?

What if the T-word above was replaced with e.g. “bank”? The use of a generic word like “bank” is so commonplace that everybody uses it without questioning. So, when I speak about a bank it might be something totally different to you as to me. Typically a strategic plan will become a huge barren plain of quicksand when core terms are used lazily.

Creating a business strategy is about understanding and then manipulating our “reality”. Philosophically, psychologically, neurologically maybe even metaphysically if you want much can be said about our ability to apprehend “reality”. Some will even argue a single reality does not exist in the first place or we humans are not equipped to “see” it in its hugeness. Leaving that aside, we use words to describe our perceived reality. Words are crucial and to parafrase John in “Zen end the art of motorcycle maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig:

if you describe the parts you will destroy the whole.

In my experience most people hardly ever try to get a grip on the words they read, hear and speak. In general people take their own meaning of a word, any word, totally for granted – however vague and broad their apprehension often is – and equally important assume that the other person is having precisely the same apprehension as they have. Human communications are pretty cumbersome. If you think about it, it is a miracle that we have come this far…

(Terminology) Definitions and words represent ideas, notions, lines of thought, coherence, relations, overlaps and, last but certainly not least, demarcations.

Understanding the terminology is an important part of getting to grips with the matter i.e. challenge in front of you as a strategist:

Strategy is about understanding the terminology used and sharing (internalizing!) the same notions.

When creating a new business strategy I spend a big part of my time on chewing on words and definitions. Once I have figured them out the strategy or “vision” it is based on hangs pretty much in front of me, ripe to be plucked.

My father is always saying:

You have to really chew on the matter.

Actually he says it a little different but the literal translation from Dutch seems awkward: “wrestling with the matter” even though it is in a literal form exactly what strategy creation is about.