Strategy: Defining Tomorrow within the Context of Yesterday
They say “time flies when you’re having fun”, but this idiom can apply to more than just fun for someone like me. Time flies when I’m knee deep in research. Time flies when I’m writing from the very depth of my soul, and a song is playing at a low volume from the corner of the room.
Time flies when there is trust.
But for me, time moves slowly when we’re running out of words. When we can only trace our fingers at the outline of something that is, or was, or could be — but without definition. When everything is pushed off to tomorrow, or next week, or six months from now, time seems to stand still when we have nothing to do and nothing is asked of us. “I won’t require you”*
Strategy is a fascinating thing. A quick internet search reveals that the root meaning of the word is, “art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship”. I think traditionally we frame our thinking of strategy as something anyone can do, but we acknowledge some do it better than others. Do we ever wonder why? I didn’t until recently.
What makes someone good at defining strategy, but makes someone else better?
There are hundreds of resources on how to build better and define strategy, with a wide array of tools for the strategist. In comparison to an artist that also has many mediums and tools at their disposal, the possibilities seem endless. Perhaps the artist will use oils or acrylics on canvas, watercolors on paper, or perhaps they will sculpt with clay, moulding a mutable substance into a visible shape with their hands, that will harden and shatter when gravity decides it so. Each of these are an art unto itself and produce varied results. But strategy and art do have something in common — both are created from a unique set of circumstances that serve a purpose, even if that purpose is the thing itself. Everything that came before it lead up to that moment the strategy, like art, was created: educational experiences, refinement of talents, specializations, passion, meticulous attention to detail, and a desire to do the thing itself. So many yesterdays over the course of years influences and defines the final outcome in ways that cannot be separated from the art.
To not mention talent — raw, natural talent — would be to ignore a defining characteristic. Talent cannot be taught**. Hard work can be taught. A keen eye can be taught, to a certain extent. But talent is, much to my own dismay often, an innately beautiful thing. Talent can be refined, it can be nurtured, it can be allowed to thrive.
The past few months I’ve been thinking of strategy. What is my strategy? Do I have a plan? What is this difference between a strategy and a plan? What should I do when I’m spread so thin, but have so many things I want to do? What about old projects that have come so far, burning torches that lay on the ground, waiting to be taken to the finish line?
I’ve had to learn which torches to pick up off the ground and which to leave on the ground to burn, and that in and of itself, is a strategy — knowing when to stop, and when to keep moving forward. Sometimes we must look to yesterday to define tomorrow.
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* this is a line from the song “Never My Love”, by The Association, and I’ve always heard it as, “I won’t require of you”, which has haunted me since my childhood.
** I’m going to catch hell for this, probably.
