Operative strategy is essential for strategic success

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." — Sun Tzu, the Art of War

When a strategy fails, execution is usually the scapegoat

Business leaders often express their disappointments from the results of their strategy. Indeed, strategies built with traditional approaches often have varying success, undesired consequences, and inconsistent development.

A contrast between what was really intended and what is actually achieved is relatively common.

First, expected results are not achieved consistently with a high success rate.

Second, decisions taken and actions planned too often turn out to lack pertinence and coherence.

Third, execution is often misaligned with the strategy and the strategy is rarely updated from execution’s feedback.

When the strategy does not bring the expected results, it’s quite common to point the finger at execution. Among other things, poor communication, lack of team commitment, or bad project management are often invoked.

While poor execution is usually blamed, the problem usually lies elsewhere: the strategy itself was flawed.

In strategy, positioning and maneuvering are both required and interdependent

In quantum physics, the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle asserts that it is impossible to know at the same time both the position and the momentum of a particle.

In strategy, it is just the opposite… Positioning and maneuvering are both required to define a winning strategy. To draw a parallel, we could call that the strategic determination principle.

The traditional way of developing strategy is focused on positioning but overlooks maneuvering

The usual strategy approach works pretty much like this.

First of all, we develop a corporate strategy that defines how to create long-term value through a portfolio of business activities.

For each business activity, we develop a competitive strategy that sets the business intent about what we want and the positioning about where we compete, against whom, and with what offerings.

Then to implement this, we develop an operating (or operational) strategy that designs the business model, associated solutions and required capabilities.

A competitive strategy and associated operational strategy alone are not sufficient to lead to success. Such an approach obviously fails to address the second focus of strategy: maneuvering by defining strategic and tactical moves.

Business strategy is more than seeking to be attractive for customers and competitive against rivals

Traditional business strategy development is only focused on attractiveness and competitiveness.

Attractiveness is the ability to be valued by customers. This is the first leg of the strategic positioning, which is about defining the attractivity factors.

Competitiveness is the ability to outperform rivals. This is the second leg of the strategic positioning, which is about defining the competitive levers.

However, business strategy should also define how to win through strategic maneuvering by conducting campaigns which execute maneuvers on the field.

Operative strategy comes from the military domain

Operative strategy in the business field is the transposition to business competition of best practices from the military in designing and planning military operations.

In its most advanced form, it combines the principles of Russian military operative art with the French methods of tactical thinking transposed for application to business strategy.

The operative strategy is ultimately what enables success on the field

The operative strategy brings strategicness, which is the ability to achieve the strategic objectives set and reach the desired future state. Its focus is to make the right moves, in the right way, and for the right purpose to ensure strategic effectiveness and lead to success.

Declining the competitive (or business) strategy into strategic and tactical engagements, the operative strategy provides substance to decisions and value to actions. Its purpose is to define how to win effectively and efficiently.

An operative strategy links strategy and execution

The gap between strategy and execution is a well-known and widespread issue. The execution is often misaligned with strategy, and conversely, the strategy is often disconnected from execution.

The operative strategy removes the gap between strategy and execution by bridging both. It aligns the execution with the strategy and adapt the strategy based on the execution.

First, it translates the strategy into concrete, pertinent and coherent moves for its execution. Second it, it timely adjusts the strategy based on feedback from execution.

Without this, strategy remains a daydream, and execution becomes a real nightmare…

The operative strategy implements the strategic positioning through strategic maneuvering

The operative strategy translates the strategic ambitions, priorities, and choices into pertinent, coherent, and effective moves across time and over space.

While the competitive strategy focuses on the demand, competition and offer, the operative strategy defines engagements on the field at three levels: warfare, campaign and maneuver. It designs and plans the wars to wage, the campaigns to conduct and the maneuvers to execute.

A warfare is a long-term engagement on a specific area to generate corporate value over time. It involves several campaigns over different time horizons and invested spaces to achieve a conclusive objective and reach a desired end state.

A campaign is a medium-term engagement within a warfare to seize opportunities and capitalize on achievements. It is a set of maneuvers on an intended time frame and a defined area to achieve a major objective and reach a desired completion state.

A maneuver is a short-term engagement taken within a campaign to build and protect a competitive advantage, or to improve and defend a position. It is a set of actions in a specific time period and a particular location to achieve a subsidiary objective and reach a desired intermediary state.

Well-known strategic failures and successes underscore the need and value a strategic maneuvering and not just positioning

A competitive strategy, however excellent is not sufficient to achieve success. They are many examples of highly successful companies that, despite their unique positioning in their market, ended up failing: Blackberry, Netscape, Nortel, Sears, Palm, Polaroid, Borders, Blockbuster, Kodak, Nokia, … Many explanations have been provided, but above all, the main reason remains that none of them have maneuvered strategically in the face of a new emerging competition.

On the other hand, there are major strategic successes that showcase the value of an operative design and planning: IBM, Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Walt Disney, Netflix, Tesla… Likewise, the determining reason for their success is their ability to maneuver. All of them translated a well-thought business intent and positioning into winning strategic moves over time and across fields of actions.

An operative strategy is the path to strategic success and excellence

No strategy is truly complete and effective without designing and planning moves on the ground. The operative strategy is what provides pertinence, coherence, and effectiveness for strategic action. It is ultimately what enables to succeed on the field.

Defining an operative strategy is a process but also an art…

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