Strategy is hard to teach. I am inclined to the side that says; ‘strategy can’t be taught but it can be learned.’ A lot of strategy lessons is a result of tacit acquisition. You must be in the arena for these things to hit. It’s those kind of lessons that are almost impossible to known with foresight. You may never appreciate that logistics is everything on the battle front until your soldiers are spread far out and it’s impossible to reinforce their supplies.
But there’s a way to prepare for the strategic process, to arrive at a front that embeds the intuitive aspects of strategic thinking. One of those starting points is knowing the right questions to ask. The world rushes for answers, but it pays to ask the right questions.
In Strategy, one of those questions is: ‘What would have to be true?’
Basically, if a business is introducing a new innovation in market, an example of this question would be:
“What would have to be true for this innovation to gain 50% adoption within a year?”
And that starts of the thinking process. Because then may be distribution would have to grow to 90%. But what would have to be true for distribution to grow to that? Would it be that unlike products that rely on truck deliveries, this business would have to employ some foot soldiers to penetrate the market? Or rely on Bodabodas and Tuktuks?
Often, you will find that about 10 things or even more will have to be true for something to work out. Then one can see how to solve and connect those 10 things.
I have found that strategy is about making the right assumptions about the realities one faces and finding the connecting thread of those assumptions. The ‘What would have to be true’ question comes in handy in this field.