> A strategy is a set of actions designed to achieve a particular objective.

Yes. I have seen people at my work make that same error that you describe.

It took the form of a bullet point in a presentation, "our strategy is to migrate to the Foo platform, for these (valid) reasons".

And I couldn't help thinking: That is a good goal, but it won't happen unless you make it happen. You don't have a strategy for that goal until you allocate time to it, set milestones, get buy-in from below, get management to tell people to it, decide which teams will go first, etc. Without that, all you have is a vague aspiration. Not a strategy.

Getting to the details of the strategy means committing to doing something even though there is effort involved, and since available effort is short supply, that means you have to choose.

What "error"? That definition comes straight from Richard Rumelt who wrote one of the all-time most influential books on strategy. And of _course_ you have to actually take action and not merely talk about it! That goes without saying. If you read the rest of my comment, you'll see I mention the same things you do, in similar words! "it takes hard work", "create alignment", "prioritize... saying no" etc.

Hard to tell if you're just trolling. Responded anyway just in case you simply rushed to make a point w/out noticing you'd entirely missed mine.

> What "error"? That definition comes straight from Richard Rumelt

You're totally misreading. You made no error in your first post, I was agreeing with you.

The error is people not understanding what a strategy is. A strategy is a plan of action, not merely a goal.

So that no-one can possibly misunderstand I will rephrase that as "I have seen people at my work make that same error that you describe".

In general, it's not good for you to respond, clearly upset but not understanding, in the heat of the moment like that.

> Hard to tell if you're just trolling. Responded anyway just in case you simply rushed to make a point w/out noticing you'd entirely missed mine.

That's not a nice way to respond, at all, to someone who is corroborating. Quite ironic, though.

I still have no idea what you are talking about.

Read again: He's agreeing with you, and is saying a lot of people misunderstand this.

I think it's good to assume they are not trolling. I've seen this very thing happen in a few departments at my org. They say, it's great to do this thing and we plan on doing it.. without actually making any concrete plans (assigning time/people, pushing back other projects, making it a priority, etc.)

So when this happens, I wonder if they are incompetent, gas-lighting people or if there are other politics in play.

>I've seen this very thing happen in a few departments at my org. They say, it's great to do this thing and we plan on doing it.

Exactly that. I have a clear memory of a presentation from about a year ago, the presenter claiming to have a strategy where there was none. it must be common.

IDK why chrisweekly is upset, but I was not criticising their first post.

@Sideburns, at this point I have to conclude you are pretending not to understand. Here's what happened:

1. I wrote a comment, summarizing 2 experts' views on "strategy".

2. You responded to my comment, quoting one line (Rumelt's definition), then saying something like "I've seen this error before." -- which made no sense because neither the definition you quoted, nor my full comment, made any reference to any error. Thus your comment seemed like trolling.

3. For some reason I responded (still in good faith) attempting to clarify.

4. Then you edited your comment, changing the meaning of your opening sentence to which I'd responded. (Note it is still illogical / incorrect, bc I never mentioned an error, but at least it's less ambiguous.)

5. Then others reading the thread for the 1st time saw what looked like my inexplicable confusion about the ambiguity which you'd removed by editing your comment...

6. Then you double down here by claiming you don't know why I might be annoyed.

I fear I'm guilty of feeding a troll, and hate to post a boring meta comment like this, but that's what happened. What a waste of time.... Apologies to mods and other readers.

> Then you edited your comment, changing the meaning of your opening sentence to which I'd responded.

I apologize for writing something in haste that was open to misinterpretation. I think that I made the correct call to then edit it so the intended meaning was much clearer. Not for your sake in any way, but to better discuss a common issue in workplaces, with other people who will care about that, won't necessarily care about this rabbithole.

I'm sorry that you didn't grasp what I was trying to say, but I suggest that you don't throw words like "troll" and "pretending not to understand" around so freely. It's not helpful. You're very defensive, and that language provokes the same response. Let's end this conversation already.

> error that you describe.

I think the misunderstanding comes from here. chrisweekly doesn't seem to describe any error in the original post, only their own approach, hence assuming you were calling that an error.

Sigh. @Sideburns edited their comment -- changing "error" to "error that you describe" -- after I replied to it.

Of course I did. It was "edited for clarity". You were misunderstanding it, and that indicates that other people might as well. So a better wording for what I was trying to say was needed.