What is strategy?

Fri January 16, 2009

I’m gearing up to teach a class on strategy for the Master of Professional Studies in Public Relations and Corporate Communication program at Georgetown University. This will be the second semester I’m teaching it.

I start the first class with a question: what is strategy? The consensus answer is generally something like, “a road map.” I suspect that would be the consensus answer in most rooms.

I’ll posit here what I argue to the class: a plan is a roadmap, the turn-by-turn directions to get from point A to point B. Strategy is bigger than that; strategy determines what the roadmap will look like. To beat the metaphor to death, will the map include highways or sidestreets? Will it include stops along the way, or take you straight through? Without a strategy, the answers are haphazard.

(more…)

LEAVE A COMMENT