“Wait, you have a favorite definition of ‘strategy’?”
Doesn’t everyone?
I like this one:
“Strategy: A mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many con- tending interests.”
- John Boyd, “The Strategic Game of ? And ?”
How’s that?
“Ok, but what about tactics?”
What about them?
Yesterday we discussed John Boyd’s definition of strategy.
Recall that he defined it so:
“Strategy: A mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests.”
So someone asked me:
“What about tactics?”
Where do they fit in?
How do they connect to strategy?
From the same page I found Boyd’s handwritten definition of strategy, I found his definition of tactics:
“Tactics: A variety of techniques that interconnect (or flow into) one another that produce, hence represent, actions to realize some operational end.”
There you go.
Strategy and tactics.
Is that it?
Is there anything missing?
If so, what?
Do you see it?
What do you think it could be?
Can your team run on tactics alone?
Can your team run on strategy alone?
What do you think?
If you’ve studied Boyd in great depth, I know you know!
Let’s allow others to ponder and consider questions and answers.
Sun Tzu might help us here when he says:
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”*
Hint: Flow.
Are we there yet?
Almost!
So we have we discussed John Boyd’s definition of strategy and tactics.
Here are again both of his definitions:
“Strategy: A mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests.”
“Tactics: A variety of techniques that interconnect (or flow into) one another that produce, hence represent, actions to realize some operational end.”
Strategy and tactics.
Is that it?
Can your team run on tactics alone?
Can your team run on strategy alone?
❌NO!
Is there anything missing?
✅YES!
We need techniques.
Those go below tactics.
Boyd defines techniques as:
“Technique: A published or habitual way of doing something.”
So are we done?
Not quite.
We still need to bind tactics to strategy.
How do we do that?
We connect them with what Boyd calls “Grand Tactics.”
“Grand Tactics: The art of connecting and harmonizing tactics with strategy by conceiving, focusing, and exploiting a variety of changing tactical actions that implement changing strategic intentions to realize a desired strategic aim.”
So now we have techniques, tactics, grand tactics, and strategy.
But we are still not done.
What do we need to effectively combine them all together in order to improve our capacity for free and independent action?
How do we bring it all together?
More to the point, how will YOU bring it all together today to implement it into the mission of your team?
And if you’re open to the learning, you will be able to do it immediately.
It should all click.
And if not right away, we can help.
Hint: I already said it earlier.
We are almost there!
The final piece of the puzzle.
Do you see it now?
To finish we connect and harmonize techniques, tactics, grand tactics, and strategy with FLOW.
Let’s bring it all together.
We began with John Boyd’s definition of strategy and tactics.
Here are both of his definitions:
“Strategy: A mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests.”
“Tactics: A variety of techniques that interconnect (or flow into) one another that produce, hence represent, actions to realize some operational end.”
Strategy and tactics.
Recall the questions we need to be mindful of:
Can your team run on tactics alone?
Can your team run on strategy alone?
NO!
Do your remember what was missing?
We add techniques below tactics, which are defined by Boyd as:
“Technique: A published or habitual way of doing something.”
But we are not done yet.
We still need to bind tactics to strategy.
We connect them with what Boyd calls “Grand Tactics.”
“Grand Tactics: The art of connecting and harmonizing tactics with strategy by conceiving, focusing, and exploiting a variety of changing tactical actions that implement changing strategic intentions to realize a desired strategic aim.”
So now we have techniques, tactics, grand tactics, and strategy.
No we bring it all together with:
FLOW!
Techniques, tactics, grand tactics and strategy FLOW.
TECHNIQUES
⬆️🟢⬇️
TACTICS
⬆️🟢⬇️
GRAND TACTICS
⬆️🟢⬇️
STRATEGY
The handwritten notes in the photo are Boyd’s, the color highlights to emphasize Flow are mine.
It’s fitting that on the top of the page, Boyd writes:
“The Flow of Techniques, Tactics, Grand Tactics and Strategy.”
Flow is how it all works.
Thus ends our discussion about John Boyd's ideas of strategy and tactics; and how they flow together to improve our capacity for free and independent action.
#management #innovation #future
I haven’t studied Boyd much beyond the typical OODA loop but I’m curious that Boyd doesn’t use the term policy in his strategy definition. The semantics of his grand tactics definition leads me to believe that “strategic intent” is a changing think. I would be curious what his definition of “policy” would be.
“…. we must continue the whirl of reorientation…. and adapt to an unfolding, evolving reality that remains uncertain, ever- changing, unpredictable.” - Truer words have never been said. Of my guiding principles, the second is "We are ALL in transition. Every one of us. ALL the time."