When art critics get together, they prattle on about content, style, trend and meaning. When painters get together, they talk about where to get the cheapest turpentine.
- Picasso
There are a lot of people who talk about strategy. TALK.
There are so many people who talk about strategy that there are comedians who’ve made a living making fun of them.
Heck, there are even mock AI strategy generators for executives too busy to write their own mission statements!
So is all strategy bullshit? No. More precisely,
All models are false, but some are useful.
- Box
The Main Message
If you would understand strategic thinking for the 21st century, there is a small but critical body of work that you need to understand. If you don’t understand this critical body of work, all of the conversations that are happening in the boardroom are going to involve concepts, metaphors and frameworks that will go right over your head and destroy your pitch before you even get started.
The following videos and lectures will give you the proper mental models and verbiage to understand just what the hell people are talking about during meetings. When you understand what they’re saying, you’ll understand that they’re full of shit.
When you understand that they’re full of shit, you can employ the appropriate language to submit your point of view in a language that they’ll get.
Remember: what the learner learns is a function of what they already know (Kullback-Leibler Divergence).
Crossing The River While Feeling The Stones by Simon Wardley
How might we balance short-term and long-term thinking?
OODA Loops by John Boyd
How do you beat a competitor who has better technology than you do?
Cynefin Framework by Dave Snowden
You’ll sink to your death if you don’t understand the terrain beneath your feet.
The Things You Can & Cannot Control by Richardson
The Seven Powers by Helmer
What are they key factors to success? I mean the KEY FACTORS.
The Beginner’s Mind
Don’t become a slave to your metaphor frameworks (h/t Dr. Whetsel).