Last year (2023) in November, the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) charged two soldiers at the rank of Major. The two soldiers were charged with cowardice, or for going against the ethos and values of UPDF. I was initially opposed to this, and thought the Majors had done the ‘right thing’ to retreat and scamper.
When I got close to the facts, I swung to the other side and agreed that indeed this tantamounted to treason. That they had gone against the DNA of UPDF. And their singular act had set UPDF back in many ways. Yet again, I wondered; ‘whose fault was it?’ How could someone grow to the rank of Major and not have that ‘DNA’ fully coded in them?
I realized that there’s an important part of strategy that’s often washed over. The aspirational aspect of strategy. In strategy, the starting point is the aspirations. The vision (what future do we want to create), the mission (what vehicle do we use to that future), and the values (what’s important to us). This aspirational side of strategy is the DNA of strategy. Whose business was it to teach these Majors about UPDF’s aspirations? How could they rise in the ranks without an idea of these aspirations?
Charging the Majors with cowardice solves one thing, but it also revealed a strategic failure on UPDF’s part. President Museveni went on to take some of the blame saying over the years, soldiers without the right ideological formation had fluked their way into Somalia. That too didn’t answer how someone grows to the rank of Major without this DNA?
The point is, the best strategy is intuitive. You don’t need anyone to remind you of what to do in a given situation. When employees are clear on the values, they don’t really need policy to be constantly drummed into their heads. When they are clear about the mission, they everything is obvious. The business environment is chaotic, every situation can’t be written down.
Netflix has this line that they hire, tolerate and reward fully formed adults. They expect that once someone knows the Netflix philosophy, they can be trusted to always act in Netflix’s best interests. As such, the Netflix strategy is intuitive, it’s embedded in the DNA of these individuals. They naturally know what to do in any given situation.
Menu