The Art of Strategy and Tactics

The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics and Why it Matters

Alex Hormozi talks about his content creation strategy quite a bit. He uses Twitter (now X) to test out an idea or a thought. If people respond positively to it he and his team turn it into a long form video for YouTube and then cut that into Shorts and Tiktoks.

That whole process is called a strategy. Each individual action step is a tactic.

"Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

?Most people confuse strategy and tactics or think they are interchangeable. Most commonly people think coming up with some clever and unique tactics means you have a good strategy. But as Sun Tzu wisely noted tactics without strategy is a good way to lose and feel like you’re winning.

Business Strategy

Business strategy involves creating a long-term vision for where your business is going. You are the general crafting a plan of attack. You see the big picture. The entire battlefield.

When creating a strategy you ask yourself the tough questions about what really matters. Where do I think the industry is going? How will my business look when we get there? Can I make it a reality with the resources I currently have?

?I briefly worked in my father’s company. It’s a subcontractor for large telecommunications companies such as Nokia who sell their communication infrastructure equipment to cellphone networks and ISP’s such as Vodacom.

Our company did the installation and maintenance of the equipment. My father’s company was one of six subcontractors working for Vodacom in Cape Town. I was brought in to manage the warehouse.

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When I got there it was the wild west. People were coming and going as they pleased taking whatever they wanted when they felt like they needed it. The system at the Vodacom warehouse where we collected the equipment wasn’t much better. Subcontractors coming and going as and when it suited them.

?I realised the bottleneck to the whole business was logistics. The warehousing and distribution of the equipment. Something that technicians and engineers cared very little about. A barely necessary consideration instead of an integral part of the business.?

A little over two years later, through processes I put into place, my father’s company went from one of six subcontractors to one of two. A result of how efficient our work had become. We went from completing two or three sites a week to about a site a day on average.

?Identifying where the bottleneck was to the business was a strategy. One that our competitors had a hard time replicating.

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Business Tactics

?Tactics are the things you do on a day-to-day basis. Ideally these should be in alignment with your strategy. Most businesses get caught in the “this is how we’ve always done it” trap. They don’t change tactics even when it’s glaringly obvious that doing so would be a winning strategy. ??

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory." Sun Tzu (again - what can I say, he was a good strategist)

When I decided we were going to change how things would be done in the warehouse I got push back from management. Both internally and from our client. The technicians all but threatened to quit. Who was I to come in all fresh faced and green around the gills to change things?

?I started by making every piece of equipment go through me, down to the nuts and bolts (literally - I would count them out one by one). I tracked everything.

?Then I decided to take on our client’s warehousing practices. The other contractors would just take whatever they were given and leave. Bless their hearts, they wanted to be courteous. Don’t hold up the line too long. Your competition needs to work too. I, on the other hand, made a nuisance of myself. I made sure I left with everything I needed.

?Soon enough the other contractors would come to us whenever they were short of something on a site and the Vodacom stores didn’t have it. These were tactics that I used to help us win more and more business from our client.

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What IS the Difference?

?Strategy and tactics are inherently interconnected. Strategy provides the framework and vision, while tactics are the actionable steps taken to achieve that vision.

Let’s say a company wants to launch a new product. They would come up with a strategy by identifying a gap in the market and position their product as the perfect solution to that problem.

Then the tactics they would use would be their marketing campaigns and distribution plan, as well as which influencer’s face they would like to promote their product.

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When to be a Strategist

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Starting a business in itself is a career strategy. You are choosing to forego the perceived security of employment. But some entrepreneurs stop thinking strategically at the point of inception.

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Sometimes you are forced to make major changes due to changes in the business landscape or advancements in technology. These are good times to put on your strategist hat. Decide on whether to add to your offerings or completely change your business model.

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Another ideal time to think strategically is when setting a long-term vision and goals for your business. This is when you take inventory of your business as a whole and start planning accordingly.

?Think about building systems to help your business adapt quickly to change. Don’t do town planning after you start cutting down forests and digging paths for roads. Take a more wholistic view.

The other subcontractors in the telecoms business thought keeping equipment on hand was a tracking headache. I knew it was a time-saver. It meant teams could go to site directly from our office instead of wasting time at the Vodacom warehouse.

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When to be a Tactician

When it comes to daily operations of the business it’s time to get your head out of the clouds. Think in terms of what will help you win the day. Ask yourself what things you can do that move the needle most and do those first. Do the same with obstacle that are a bottleneck for progress.

?Don’t forget to put out fires while they are still embers. Don’t put off until tomorrow a pain point that can be solved today. Today’s headache is tomorrow’s migraine.

Often I got berated by my project manager for doing what she felt like was small tasks. I would put together equipment for sites instead of fetching equipment from our client. I would record every single thing that came back from site instead of issuing new equipment going out that day. We used to butt heads constantly. But I knew a little extra time spent doing it right meant I didn’t have to do it over.

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Where are You and Your Business?

What challenges are you currently facing in your business? Is it time to be a tactician or do you need to take a step back and reevaluate your strategy? It is not a distinction without a difference.

?Take inventory of the problems you’re facing and if they are the same problem everyday in different clothing it might be time for some deeper thinking about your business strategy. As my father likes to say, it doesn’t matter how fast you run if you’re running in the wrong direction.