BUSINESS TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS
Why Your Strategy and Tactics Should Not Be Confused
What’s The Difference Between Tactics And Strategy?
The Startup journey begins from the point you set up and begin to run your business. You need a Strategy. You also need to constantly review your Strategy. The benefits of which keep you agile, keep you thinking and pivoting to meet or discover market demands.
Mission, Objectives, Strategy And Tactics
Firstly allow me to introduce the MOST (Mission, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics) model as it answers two crucial daily questions:
- Why are you doing this thing that makes you get up in the morning? and
- What should you prioritize for the day ahead?
Mission — This is your purpose, your goal for what you want to achieve.
Do you want to change the world? Do you want to improve society? Do you want to entertain? Do you want to teach others? Do you want to help others? Do you want to sell out for millions and retire early?
Fantastic.
These are all legitimate Missions for a business, but this is your business, so you get to decide what your Mission is.
Many first-time Entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes but one of them is not getting their Mission clear in their own mind first. Then writing it down. When you write down your Mission then you can define your Objectives. From these Objectives your Strategy is next in line to work on— Write it down before listing out your Tactics.
“State Your Strategy In A Sentence” — Matthew E. May
Start With Why
Ask yourself this every day — Why am I doing this?
Wanting to get rich is fine. It’s certainly a reason to get out of bed every day. Wanting to build a new product or service is simply not enough. Wanting to be your own boss is also not enough. These things will not sustain you during the tough times that lie ahead.
When your Mission is clear, you have a launchpad to develop your Strategy in order to make sure that your Mission becomes reality.
In the absence of a Mission, Strategies are no more short-term tactics.
Now, What’s The Difference Between A Tactic And A Strategy
Strategies are the manifestation of your ideas, the ones that you’re trying to prove through your Startup venture.
The difference is that Strategies are the narrative that paints a picture of the future. Whereas Tactics are the measurable actions that progress towards your futuristic narrative.
A tactic can succeed or fail, evident in the numbers or from the outcome.
The problem in a Startup is that your Tactics can succeed but your Strategy can fail to create that future reality.
The Leadership Dilemma
It’s too easy to get stuck in the weeds of Tactics. The problem is that they’re self-sustaining, self-fulfilling with Bias in mind.
A Tactic that works today may no longer fit your revised Strategy and it can be hard to let go of the one that works — it can feel counter-intuitive.
“Leadership does have a big impact on companies.”
— R. Shawn McBride
It can affect your ego more than anything else. A piece of your Leadership credibility is chipped away when you decide to kill an old tactic. One that’s no longer relevant as it no longer serves a purpose in delivering your Strategy.
What’s worse, you may have to release employees if they do not have the skills or cannot transition to new tasks. That’s tough.
Final Thoughts
This is why the MOST model is quite useful. As a waterfall model, Tactics get the lowest priority and rightly so.
Your Objectives are one step below your Mission, a collection of mini-goals that underpin your overall Mission.
You start with your Mission, which is unlikely to change that much in the early years. Objectives reassess your Strategy and evaluate how effective each Tactic is to ensure that your Strategy is working.
This is a method that you can employ in your Startup right now. You can do it frequently within teams or less frequently with a deeper analysis.
It keeps things on track as you navigate unknown territory going forward.
“I’m an entrepreneur. I am dependent on myself for income, daily tasks, planning for my future, and business strategy.”
— Tom Kuegler
