On Strategy: Part 2, retrospective application.

It’s Friday. Again. It’s blogging time. Again!

In my last post I wrote about the definitions of strategy, drawing from different authors. The combination of all of them took me to write my own version:

A strategy is a plan to overcome a challenge or take on an opportunity, by focusing power on a set of coordinated actions within a system whose existence and motivation derives from that challenge or opportunity.

In this post I want to take a couple of plans and objectives from earlier in my life and apply this definition to determine whether, according to it, these were strategies or not.

Both items are from a few years ago, since I wanted to look at a completely different period of my life to understand where was my skill on strategy back then.

First: Organizational objective, 2011

This is from an NGO called Ideals Matter I used to run with my husband and a few friends. After running an online website for a couple of years, where we published articles on different social issues, we decided to go a bit more off-line and organize a local event.

Here is an extract from a document with the full plan for the event, which was a Film Festival.

Ideals Matter wants to make a positive change in society by opening people’s eyes to various problems. The objective is to raise awareness about important topics related to society, health and environment, and bring them closer to the average citizen. In this case the means chosen are movie screenings, where not only words but also images and music can communicate messages.

The project involves screening six films in five days. In order to increase the effectiveness of the learning process, after each movie, an open discussion among the attendees and a Q&A session with either a professional on the subject related to the movie or the movie director him/herself will take place.

From the Ideals Matter Film Festival Plan, 2011

In order for the item to fit my definition of strategy, it has to meet the three criteria in it: clearly identified challenge or opportunity, a coordinated set of actions, and a link between the motivations of those who take the actions and the challenge identified.

In the citation above I identify only two of those three: the screening of films and the open discussions after these are the coordinated activities; the second element is the link between the motivation of the organization, mentioned in the first line, and the actions: It wants to open people’s eyes on a variety of problems, and the use of films helps do this through enticing stories.

Now, notice there is a link between motivation and actions, but what is missing? The challenge is not clearly identified. There is supposed to be a challenge, and its link to the motivation. In the next part of the document, however, there is a section titled “Why a film festival”. It says:

Today’s society is facing some of the biggest challenges that humankind has seen since its beginnings. In the globalized environment we live in, the actions taken by one person may affect another person on the other side of the world — Estonian citizens are no exception.

In this respect, the project aims to bring the Estonian citizens closer to realities that are both geographically far and close to their reality, through the screening of movies.

From the Ideals Matter Film Festival Plan, 2011

This is the challenge or opportunity identified: connecting people’s individual actions to their wider local or global impact. Doing this through education. Bringing this education about through cinematographic storytelling.

So what’s the verdict?

Yes, this is a strategy!

There is a challenge or opportunity, the education of people on global issues and their connection to them; a set of coordinated actions, which are all the activities of the film festival itself; and a link between the actors motivation and the challenge, which is bringing about awareness on social issues, and the lack of it in the average citizen.

The document later details specific social problems, a list of movies and their connection to those problems, the profile of the audience targeted, the number of people expected, dates and place of projections, and the specific personnel needed to carry out each of the activities. There is full coherence.

And if you’re curious, we declared the festival a success. There were over 500 attendees, which meant about 80 people per movie session. And while we were a not-for-profit we managed to make some money which we later donated to other NGOs.

My conclusion for this one is that the organization had a clear strategy and this event in itself was core to it. Too bad there was a conflict between the organizational strategy and our personal ones which is why we ceased to exist.

Talking of which, let’s now look at a simpler, more personal one.

Second: Personal objective, 2013

The objective read: “Save between 3 and 6 months of salary for a jobless situation, and up to a month of salary for a family emergency”.

Let’s break this: there is a challenge or more like an opportunity to prepare for potential future challenges, which are a loss of job and an unspecified emergency. There are no actions identified with the exception of saving money. And there’s no underlying motivation described.

Now, I know that this objective was part of a wider set that I was aiming at after having read a few materials on personal finance management, and after having experienced some shit in life. There was an analysis done on expenses, income, and an examination of different scenarios of how modifying those expenses and income would impact my life style, emotions, and relationships.

These together would make up for a more coherent set of coordinated actions. But as it stands, this objective is not really a strategy. It might be a small piece of a bigger puzzle, but in itself it’s missing on the power it should theoretically harness from different sources, and the challenges at hand are not specific enough to understand, from their diagnosis, what exactly needs to be done, and in what period of time. It does not say either how those challenges are related to my personal motivations.

My conclusion from this one is that when we are thinking personally about changing our lives in a significant way, we need to think strategically. Objectives are needed within a strategy, but on their own they don’t amount for one. We need to think bigger of how all the areas that make our life affect each other, how actions from one of those areas triggers, enters in conflict with or multiplies the effect of another. Think about that if you’re in the mood of closing 2019 in a reflective way, and planning ahead of 2020.

As for myself, I will keep on reading about strategy, but I must admit I like where my thinking was a few years ago in the area. Without the theory, the practice was taking place.

Happy Friday,
Maria 🌺

Originally published at https://marialasprilla.wordpress.com on December 6, 2019.