Illuminating the Path

We regularly encounter corporate word-salads, cargo-cult disquisitions and elaborate graphics that masquerade as strategy.

These types of creations then provide no clear direction to staff, to managers, or to investors.

That Man Jobs Again

The following email from (Apple's) Steve Jobs to (Adobe's CEO) Bruce Chizen was recently highlighted in LinkedIn posts.

Each.
Word.
Counts.

Each.
Sentence.
Counts.

There is a problem
This problem is clearly described.
A decision is now required.
Chizen must make the decision.
Jobs will abide by Chizen's decision.
(Not said, but implicit: Jobs will then react accordingly.)

Strategy's Scope

There is another implication (from the above example):

Steve Jobs certainly was powerful (and self-assured) enough to have made a decision himself. Yet, he chooses not to. Through doing so, he, in fact, manages to achieve at least two more objectives. He empowers Chizen, while simultaneously (through that empowerment) cementing his leadership in this scenario. No one is perfect, and Jobs certainly had many major flaws too, but one has to admit that this is a breathtakingly good example of clear and concise leadership.

Similarly, a strategy must provide clear direction while also still providing space for decision-making, innovation and creativity in each of its detail areas. I.e., a strategy in a capitalist space is unlike Central Planning (e.g. Mao's Great Leap Forward).

Yet, we sometimes see leaders who, counter-productively, seek to maintain extreme levels of micromanagement beyond the scope of what a strategy should be.

Postscript

Interestingly, these types of interactions (such as between Jobs and Chizen, for example) then lead to some other interesting antitrust litigation developments too.