Follow Real Strategy
Author Archives: Bill Carson
The Winds of Patagonia; Cooperative Strategy
Down the E. Coast of Patagonia My friend Marcelo organized a car trip through Patagonia. As a young guy he had worked on a Patagonian estancia and knew the territory well. The plan was to start in Buenos Aires, drive down the east side of Argentina through the Pampas, along the Atlantic Coast of Patagonia, cross the Strait of Magellan, spend Christmas week with friends in Ushuaia on the island of Tierra Del Fuego, then re-cross the Strait, head west, drive back north along the Andes Cordillera, and then east again to Buenos Aires. 6000 miles. We would be stopping … Continue reading
Posted in cooperative strategies, strategy design, strategy types Tagged Andes, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Argentina, Buenos Aires, bump drafting, car, cooperative strategy, dogfight, elements, external factors, Great Enabler, mismatch, NASCAR, parties, Patagonia, resource, Strait of Magellan, sub-strategy, Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, wind 2 Comments
Strategy in the News: Fake Review Scams
RISKY RELIANCE Here we are online, looking for a pair of sneakers. We’re at the site of a major online retailer. [sorry - ignore this interruption: BYB6NREXZYJG] So many sneakers to choose from. A dazzling array of makes, models and colors. How to choose? After going down the search tree, we find several candidates that look pretty good. Time to check out their customer reviews. Wow – so many 5-star customer ratings! Funny. As we read along, some reviews emerge as rather odd. Maybe it’s the way the reviewer slipped into “marketing speak” – which we wouldn’t expect a real consumer … Continue reading
Escaping E. Berlin; A Simple Way to Devise Complex Strategies (1)
COLD WAR CHILLS The Wall came down in 1989. Over 20 years ago. It’s easy to forget what it was like for the people living on both sides of it at the time. NATO had a very important role during the time of The Wall, and Germany and America were especially close partners. Did you know that Germany had Air Force facilities in the U.S. (and still does)? During the later part of the Cold War, I had business with the German Air Force, and flew out of a tightly guarded German facility at Dulles Int’l. Airport. High cyclone fences … Continue reading
Posted in cool strategies, general strategy model, strategy design Tagged Achim Weyer, armor, Berlin Wall, car, Cold War, Cologne, complex strategy, crow, East Berlin, elements, Germany, how to, Luftwaffe, objectives diagram, opportunity, problem, security, solution, strategy definition, strategy diagram, sub machine guns, sub-objective, sub-strategy, thinking skills 2 Comments
Escaping E. Berlin; A Simple Way to Devise Complex Strategies (2)
FOLLOW-UP to the previous post: here are some specifics on how to devise complex strategies. In that post we were using the example of Achim Weyer’s escape from E. Berlin. Weyer had decided to escape by armoring a car and making it through a checkpoint (gate location) in The Wall. If we were to devise a complex strategy along the line of Weyer’s, we would go through a process of sketching two kinds of diagram. This gets the key points of our strategy down on paper, and in the process, into our heads. The Objectives Diagram First, we’d identify the objective(s) (in this … Continue reading
Posted in general strategy model, strategy definition, strategy design Tagged Achim Weyer, armor, Berlin Wall, car, checkpoint, Cold War, complex strategies, complex strategy, creative thinking, critical thinking, devise, East Berlin, elements, General Strategy Model, Germany, how to, Luftwaffe, objectives diagram, opportunity, problem, security, solution, strategy definition, strategy diagram, sub machine guns, sub-strategy 1 Comment
Strategy in the News: Witch’s Horns
Recently in the news, reported by the Fox Network and various newspapers, incl. my local Coloradoan: A North Carolina woman of the Wiccan faith locked horns with school district administrators. She attempted to convince them not to allow the distribution of Christian bibles at the school her daughter was attending. The school district did so, anyway. How to deal with this? As it happens, the law gave the mother, Ginger Strivelli, just what she needed to devise a strategy that created an untenable dilemma for the administrators. The law reads that the administration has two choices. 1) If they refuse the … Continue reading
Posted in strategy in the news Tagged bible, dilemma, elements, forts, general sherman, horns, horns of a dilemma, how to win, indirect strategy, puzzle, school district, sherman, strategies in the news, strivelli, wiccan 9 Comments
How to Devise a Strategy: Affordable Coffee
We’re all wired to devise strategies. So you just have to put the right info into your head, and it will take care of the rest. Let it all sit there. Give your intuition an opportunity to do its work. You’re objective will create the pull that draws out the strategy. Your barriers and available resources, and their many possibilities, will shape it. It will come to you. Here’s an example of devising a strategy This method is easy, and makes sense. It follows the natural thinking sequence of problem > opportunity > solution. Situation: You like to drink a … Continue reading
Posted in strategy design Tagged coffee, elements, exploit, external factors, how to, mismatch, objective, opportunity, parties, popper, price, problem, resource, solution, thinking skills, timing, vulnerability 8 Comments
