Strategic Management: What is Strategy?

Strategy comes from the Greek word ‘strategos’ which is a term for a high-ranking military official or general. The concept of strategy derives, therefore, from the context of military thought and that explains why so much of management thought and literature is written the way it is.
In the military sense, successful strategy results in the death and destruction of the opposition and, where possible, the completely safe nature of the friendly side (albeit there are many generals who would sanction not only friendly deaths but what has become euphemistically known as ‘collateral damage’). In the western tradition, it has become conventional to imagine that warfare is best conducted on a face-to-face battle between two more or less equally matched sides and is epitomized by the sight of two knights jousting or fighting each other with swords and shields. However, for most of the world, military strategy has quite different connotations. For Sun Tzu, for example, successful strategy means finding a way of winning the battle without ever having to come to a physical confrontation. For many cultures, from Southeast Asia to Scandinavia to Africa, the role of the trickster is considered to be one of the most important roles in society and the trickster is characterized by his or her way of bringing down the enemy without being personally exposed to any danger or risk.


What relevance does this type of military strategy have for the consideration of managerial strategy? First, it should be noted that the military person does not have the same goal as the modern manager: the modern manager, that is, does not need to see all opposition destroyed or killed – indeed, in some cases the manager will benefit more if the opposition also thrives to some extent. Second, managerial strategy need not be aimed at resulting in coming first at all. Consider that few companies or brands can really be first in the market and the majority of successful companies are happy enough to be making money in a profitable position that need not be the most prominent. Finally, modern business thought stresses the importance of partnerships and of cooperation in reducing the costs of doing business, for profit maximization and for sustainability. Strategy in this sense is related to the game theory approach much more than the military approach.

In its essence, strategy relates to the planning and deployment of resources with a view to positioning an organization in a certain configuration or location with respect to other organizations. In the contemporary world, winning and losing need not come into the equation at all.


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