Why a strategy fails to remain a strategy?

In one of my earlier blogs I wrote about how strategy is different than a problem.

Let me try giving some more insights about strategy and ‘misuse’ of the word strategy in the corporate.

If I say that the strategy is futuristic in nature which defines decision of making thoughtful choices. These choices explain assumptions about choices and reasons of choosing to do something and why not to do something.

But the reality is different.

Very seldom, you will find the word strategy being used alone. Generally, it is sufficed with ‘planning’ or ‘plans’. Therefore, the strategy becomes strategic planning or strategic plans. This change leads to very catastrophic change not to the word itself but even to the thought process in the organisation.

Plans or planning denotes actionable events which are scheduled in advance to carry out in an agreed manner later. It means aligning some doable actions.

More so in organisations, strategic planning starts with referring to the vision or mission – a lofty, aspirational goal- as some say. The vision or mission is then taken to identify some related initiatives. Each ‘identified’ initiative is put under the scanner of ‘Financial Feasibility which in turn leads to ’annual budgets’. The moment this is done, strategy is relegated into the background. Chaos erupts out. Initiatives fail and whole word demean the ‘strategy’.

Annual budgets are not used to define a strategy rather a tool check the financial stability. Secondly, initiatives or for that matter financial numbers provide knowledge about short & medium term success.

A strategy is not a financial budget. So is the case with the planning, as planning is not explicit about what the organisation chooses to do and why.  Planning in reality talks about logic of affordability and therefore, it can be supervised. As we were supervisors during our course of career, we tend to go back to supervision and fail to understand the real meaning of strategy. Regarding ‘plans’, it again revolves around allotment of organisation resources.


So, when you come across strategic planning or strategic plans, beware, they are not talking about ‘Strategy’ per se. Check with people what they mean before you react.

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