The Inception of Strategy

The Invisible Strings that Influence Creation of Strategy

A great strategy often seems like a creative work of a genius. The strategy that Hannibal took, when looked upon the surface could seem to be just an extraordinary smart idea. There are geniuses in every field who could pull out such strategies when required.

What does it take to create a great strategy ? How can we learn to create great strategies at will ?

When we look at a puppet show for the first time, we might marvel at how could those pretty, but lifeless dolls move on their own. But when we look deeper, we begin to realize that there are fine strings pulling those puppets. Once we are familiar with the mechanism that moves those puppets, it is no more a mystery, and we can relax into marvelling at the enrapturing stories that the puppets are trying to convey.

When we just look at the "visible" aspects of great strategies, it might feel like a mystery, a magic. However, when we start delving deeper, and start seeing those fine, seemingly invisible strings that pull these ideas, we would realize that creating innovative strategies is a skill that one can learn to recognize.

You would be surprised that a lot of problems that we have been solving all our lives, including a lot of popular puzzles and games that we have played since our childhood, have layers and layers of such invisible strings that we have missing out on, just because we never looked hard enough.

Look hard and you will see a lot more

The next time we hear or say a phrase on the lines of "I have done everything I could", we should be rest assured that probably the speaker of this phrase hasn't even begun scratching the surface of what could possibly have been done. If he even began digging a bit, he would see that there is a vast core of information that we are probably missing out in our day to day lives.

As an example, consider the most popular hobby game, Tic-Tac-Toe. Everyone has had significant experience with the game. How do you go about playing this game ? What do you think while you are playing the game ? How do you come up with your next move ? What objectives do you have in mind while playing this game ?

What strategies do you use to play Tic-Tac-Toe ?

How can you come up with a strategy that ensures you never lose a Tic-Tac-Toe game ?

How could you become an unbeatable Tic-Tac-Toe player ?

Deconstructing Tic-Tac-Toe

How is a Tic-Tac-Toe game won ?

As a beginner to the game, one may bank on the opponent missing out on simple formations. For example, in this case, the Dot player could miss out noticing that a line is about to be formed on the left vertical column, and may end up occupying some other square, gifting the Cross player a win.

In general, you cannot aim to win at Tic-Tac-Toe with moves like this. The opponent can easily block this move.

Ignoring silly oversights, there is one and only way to win at Tic-Tac-Toe.

A Tic-Tac-Toe game can be won ONLY by providing two simultaneous threats to the opponent.

The opponent can defend at most one threat and then the other threat wins the game.

For example, in the above case, the player playing the Cross has posed two threats : one on the top horizontal line, and one on the central vertical line. The player playing the Dot can protect only one of the two, and hence loses.

A game of Tic-Tac-Toe can be considered to be decided when someone has made such a threat. Once a player poses 2 threats to the opponents, the game has virtually ended. In the above example, the game is already decided when the Cross player decides to play the move that creates two simultaneous threats. The Dot player should have spotted this threat one move ago and occupied that square in order to prevent a loss. But if he allows the Cross player to occupy that square, the game is done right there.

From Cells to Lines

When we play Tic-Tac-Toe, our prominent preoccupation is about the next square to occupy. However, the real strategy emerges at the level of the lines. The strategy emerges from the observation that you need to aim for two lines simultaneously.

Clearly, these two lines that we are aiming for has to intersect each other. For example, when you have two non-intersecting lines, you cannot pose two simultaneous threats.

The simultaneous threat is posed when you occupy the two squares on each of these lines, including the intersection point of the two lines being aimed for.

As an example, if we intend to occupy the two lines as shown above, we need to have occupied one square on each of these lines, and when we occupy the intersection point, two threats emerge.

For example, we have seen previously that a situation like the one shown below in itself doesn't pose any threat to the opponent, because it can be defended directly.

However, this situation is very powerful because of another reason - this can lead us to a double-threat situation across the lines shown below :

How can we achieve this ?

It's simple. Occupy the intersection point of these two lines.

A more complex, non-obvious situation leading to the similar situation is this :

Even here, by occupying the central square, we pose two threats on the very same lines :

As an exercise, you can try working out what positions could you look for if we aimed at posing two simultaneous threats across these two lines.

Seeing what no one else can see

A Strategic Thinker often seems to have an ability to pull solutions out of thin air. The difference in what an average person could achieve vis-a-vis what a Stategic Thinker would achieve in a similar situation could be a thousand-fold.

Tic-Tac-Toe is a game that many of us have played all through our lives, and it is illuminating to know that a simple game as this could have a winning strategy that can be "derived" from the first principles of the game.

The Strategy that we discussed above needs no more ability than to ask yourself the right questions about the problem :

"How can we win a Tic-Tac-Toe game ?"

Or, since most Tic-Tac-Toe games are mathematically slated to end in a draw,

"How can we avoid defeat in a Tic-Tac-Toe game ?"

A creative strategy like the one described above requires us to go several levels deeper than the usual superficial discussions centred around "what square to occupy next". Metaphorically, it could require us to immerse ourselves totally into the game and be able to take as close a look at the problem as one could. It is always the questions we ask about the problem that help us open up new lines of thinking - including those lines of thinking which are not visible to others.

For example, when we try to answer the question about how to win a Tic-Tac-Toe game, we might say something on the lines of -

"We win a Tic-Tac-Toe game by placing 3 Dots/Crosses in a line".

It is obvious that we would be placing these three pieces one by one.

What happens after we have placed the 2nd piece ?

It is obvious that when the opponent sees 2 pieces in a line, he is going to block it.

How do we win then ?

The only way to do is to find a way that the opponent cannot block the line being completed. Since, an opponent can always block a line at the 2nd step, there is only one way to ensure that the opponent cannot block a line from being completed - give him two lines at a time.

The Strategic Thinker might appear to have an extra vision that enables him to see things that are completely invisible to others.

How can one develop this ability to "see" what others cannot ?

The Future Lies in Strategic Thinking

The corporates have a very skewed view about the abilities of Problem-Solving, Deep Thinking and Strategic Thinking. The belief that sufficient number of professionals working sufficiently hard on a problem would fetch similar results to what a Strategic, Deep Thinker could accomplish is fundamentally flawed.

Strategic Thinking is an essential skill for the Professionals. The ability to deconstruct creates results that are unbelievable compared to what a surface-level problem-solver can achieve.

The genius of Hannibal

A routine warfare could require a meticulous planning, but a battle like the Battle of Cannae could only be won with an innovative strategy. It requires a military genius that Hannibal was, to come up with a strategy like that.

As we open up the process of strategy and peep into the deeper recesses of how strategies evolve in these articles, we would reach closer to be in a position to understand it better how Hannibal used an intricate understanding of the terrain, combined with an intent focus on how to turn the opponent's strengths to suffocate them, to create the winning strategy that has marvelled the world for two millennia.

It would be a different world if every Corporate solved its problems with this level of meticulous deconstruction. A good strategy is what could potentially be the factor that turns around a multiple of challenging and failing projects around us to massive success.

Once we have a Strategy in place, what next ?

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Deep Thinking and Strategy

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