Strategy

It's everywhere. Pick any newspaper or magazine article, blog post, white paper, and even twitter. Everybody is "strategizing" or giving advice on how to be "strategic" about something. It has become a trend, yet after I asked several people about the definition, I got several different and hazy answers.

Let's be strategic and learn what the word really means.  The dictionary says:

–noun, plural -gies.
1.     Also, strategics. the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations.
2.     the use or an instance of using this science or art.
3.     skillful use of a stratagem.
4.     a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result.

The word was obviously crafted during war times, so the dictionary definition is hardly applicable as it is, to the modern corporate world, unless you think of it as a corporate war of course, which it wouldn't be a big stretch.

Paul Niven defines strategy as: “The broad priorities adopted by an organization in recognition of its operating environment and in pursuit of its mission.”

I like his definition when thinking about the organizational arena. It contains just the right words: "broad priorities", "operating environment" and "pursuit of its mission".

Let me read again those articles and white papers now.