Ruminations from the Compass Desk

The above picture is from Standupdesks.com

In the past 10 years, we have researched the topic of how people practiced the art and the science of strategy.

Some segments of our research were based on our many sessions of observing and studying how people planned their strategies and managed their decisions.

Following are some of those points that we have learned:

• They simplified their strategic assessment activity; 
• They usually do not understand their competition;
• They usually were not willing to spend a great deal of time to collect specific intelligence;
• They preferred to focus on their strengths without ever thinking about their own weaknesses;
• They preferred to plan without having any detailed contingency options;
• They liked their decision-making process to be quite simple;
• They had a tendency to confuse their common sense with their so-called intuition;
• Some of them have no sense of risk/consequences;
• Some of them took advice from sources who could be categorized as "moral hazard"; and
• Some of them were not always willing to follow a multi-step process.

We will explain the reasoning behind each of the above points in a future post (or in our future book).

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Compass Principle 

• The successful strategists are those who understand the what's, the hows, the wheres, the whys and the when's.

Compass Postulates

• For every principle or rule, there is an exception.
• When the configuration of a situation is understood, one could find the exception.

Q: Do you know the exceptions to the strategic rules that you have been operating under?