Rowan Spazzoli

Over the last few days I’ve been looking at the “Four Hallmarks of Bad Strategy” from Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. Each of these will be linked to a South African example and concluded with a tip to avoid that element of bad strategy.

The fourth and final element of bad strategy that Rumelt highlights is that of “bad strategic objectives”. He explains that there there are two types of bad strategic objectives:

1. Dogs dinner objectives: instead of having one or two key strategic objectives, an organisation will try to write up a wish list.
2. Blue sky objectives: a “blue sky objective” is a simple statement with no path to achieve it

South African Example: Kauai Straws

I saw a great example of this the other day. I was at Kauai and noticed that they’d put a sign up that said they were no longer serving their drinks with straws. This is a really great initiative because single use straws are an unnecessary waste.

However, the sign also read that if you did want a straw you could ask the cashier for one. And clearly the cashier had gotten frustrated with this, so they moved the straws to next to the sign.

This nullified Kauai’s entire strategic objective to eliminate straws. Because it was a “blue sky” objective that didn’t have a path to achieve it

Setting good strategic objectives

Setting better strategic objectives involves two main considerations. First, keep them simple and focused. Test them by seeing if they can be recited easily by anyone they apply to.

Secondly, set objectives that have paths to achieving them. If you want to remove the straws, find a substitute or get rid of them entirely. Set tangible links to how your strategy will be successful, otherwise it is meaningless.

Image was taken at the Kauai 

Song of the day: Mitis - Away

Blog 120/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

Over the next few days I’ll be looking at the “Four Hallmarks of Bad Strategy” from Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. Each of these will be linked to a South African example and concluded with a tip to avoid that element of bad strategy.

The third element of bad strategy that Rumelt highlights is that of “mistaking goals for strategy”. He explains that many people and organisations set goals that they expect to act as their strategies. The example he uses is a company with the following “Strategy”:

“We want to grow revenues at more than 20% per year with margins at 20% or more” is mistaking goals for strategy”

Student Strategies

There was a student last year that told me their strategy was to get 75% or more for the course. Although this is an admirable goal, it isn’t a real strategy. There are many ways that it can be improved on. For example, having a set of coherent actions instead of just an objective would turn it into a strategy.

It’s easy to fall into the pitfall of substituting goals for strategy. The best way to test your strategy for this is to simply ask, “how?” If your strategy is even partly able to answer this then you’re on the right track.

Image was taken at the start of the Cape Town Marathon.

Song of the day: Day I Die - The National

Blog 119/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

Note this post was a little late, I thought I’d queued one up for yesterday but turns out I hadn’t 🙂

Over the next few days I’ll be looking at the “Four Hallmarks of Bad Strategy” from Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. Each of these will be linked to a South African example and concluded with a tip to avoid that element of bad strategy.

Note: this post discusses strategy in South African politics. It is not an endorsement for the party being discussed. It is instead an analysis of a shortcoming of their strategy.

The second element of bad strategy that Rumelt highlights is that of “failing to face the problem”. He explains that failure to identify problems means that your strategy is ultimately just a wish list. In order to craft an effective strategy, you need to understand why things haven’t worked well in the past and confront this.

SA Example: The White DA

The Democratic Alliance has been trying everything they can to get into power at a national level. They have made advances in some regards, having won some big local level elections last year.

However, I don’t think that their existing strategy will ever get them in to power at a national level. And the reason is because they are continuously failing to address a fundamental problem:

The DA is perceived to be the party of and for white people

And many South African voters either don’t like this or are scared of what this might mean if the DA get into power. Regardless of whether these fears and dislikes are valid, they are what people perceive, which ultimately direct their voting.

The DA have never tackled this issue head on. Their 2014 National Manifesto and their 2016 Local Manifesto did not contain the word “white” once. They 2016 manifesto used the word “Black” on one ocassion and doesn’t use the word “race” at all.

Some might say that this can’t be the case because now they have a black leader. But I’d argue this has done little to address the problem. They need to find a way to do this if they want to achieve their objectives.

Face the problem

The solution to this pitfall is simple in theory and difficult in practice: face the problem head on. Avoiding it gets you no where. In tackling the underlying problem, it allows for the development of a more effective strategy

Image is from the 2014 elections when everyone was posting pictures with their thumbs and stamps. I was feeling left out so posted this homemade version to social media.

Song of the day: Zedd - Stay

Blog 117/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here