Lessons from Cowboys about Strategic Intent

As a young engineer I was given a big promotion to lead the operations team running a large manufacturing plant. When I accepted the offer, my manager, the CEO, said something to me that I will always remember. “Murray”, he said, “get the herd heading generally westward”.

It helps to know that he was a Texan. He didn’t wear a 10-gallon hat, but it wouldn’t have looked out of place. What he was referring to when he gave me those words of advice were the cattle drives of the Wild West. Cattle from the ranches were driven long distances to stockyards and railheads at cattle towns.

The metaphor about the cattle drive and get the herd heading generally westward is about strategic intent and leadership. The stockyard is the vision or the goal. The direction is clearly “westwards”, but the interesting part of the metaphor is the word “generally”. Strategy is not about setting a fixed plan – the world is too uncertain for that. Strategy is about an intent and guidelines for making decisions and choices.

When we leave the ranch we cannot know if a particular river crossing is inaccessible or if rustlers will come in the middle of the night and create chaos. The word “generally” implies flexibility and freedom to vary from the original path. Cowboys can drive the herd in a different direction if necessary, so long as the new direction is consistent with the vision of reaching the cattle town.

"Generally" also means that individuals will have varying interpretations about the exact direction. That's fine, if everyone is working together towards the same destination with similar intentions.

It was a good lesson for a young engineer. There were some other words of advice, like dealing with injured cattle and stragglers, but for this city slicker that was about enough cowboy metaphor for me.

If you would like to know more about strategy execution, contact me at [email protected]