Category Archives: strategy definition

Strategy Types: Critical Operations

LET’S take a quick look at some compelling strategy situations … 1.      SURVIVAL By a near miracle, or perhaps an actual miracle, you’ve just survived a night time airplane crash somewhere in the Amazon.  The Amazon is a big place and you don’t know where you are.  It’s also a formidable place, night or day.  You probably wouldn’t last more than several days in this environment before perishing, so you have to quickly make your way to safety. You sense that your chances of finding a village are poor and that perhaps you should try to arrange, instead, for someone else to … Continue reading

Posted in cool strategies, critical operations strategies, general strategy model, strategy elements, strategy recognition, strategy types | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

What Strategies Are

On the 3rd of May each year, the women of Monsanto, Portugal, walk up a stone path from the town to the top of the mountain.  They enter the fortress there and then cast clay jars full of flowers down from its granite walls in commemoration of the villagers’ resistance to the many sieges in the town’s long history.  During a stay in the town, I was told a story about the clay jars and what they represent. They represent cows.  The story goes like this.  Long ago, perhaps in the 1100’s, Monsanto was under siege.  The people of the … Continue reading

Posted in cool strategies, faux strategies, strategy definition, strategy elements | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Anatomy of a Strategy

Gotta’ have Anatomy Look at the guys in the Rembrandt painting.  They’re old doctors getting an anatomy lesson from the one wearing a hat.  Troubling.  How can you have been a doctor unless you understood the parts of the body and how they work together?  But here these puzzled-looking doctors are, finally getting an anatomy lesson. Reminds me of where we are with strategy today.  We need a small dose of strategy anatomy. It was quite a lag in time before the Western medical profession adopted what should be considered the most minimal understanding necessary to be a practicing doctor.  But in many … Continue reading

Posted in cool strategies, efficient strategies, strategy definition, strategy elements | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments