Strategy means act — Kelford Labs Daily

“A good strategy includes a set of coherent actions. They are not ‘implementation’ details; they are the punch in the strategy. A strategy that fails to define a variety of plausible and feasible immediate actions is missing a critical component.”

— Richard P. Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy

As you’ve read me say a million times before, strategy is the “the structure to work efficiently to get what you want.”

What strategy isn’t is an objective, a goal, or an ideal final state. No, it’s a set of actions, constrained by structure, that point you toward what you want.

Without action, there is no strategy.

Without action, there is no getting what we want.

Which means, it’s impossible to have a perfect strategy—because action will always yield additional information, as Blair Enns says. It yields information we didn’t have before we acted, and before we drafted our strategy.

Once the efficient actions we decided upon actually enter the real world, our strategy will need to adapt and change.

It will never be perfect, but it can always get better.

But only if we act.

So, define and articulate what it is you want. Then determine the efficient actions that will lead you closer. And then wrap a structure around those actions so they’re sustainable and enjoyable.

Then, act.

Kelford Inc. helps hands-on entrepreneurs and founders with complex marketing challenges define and articulate their unique value to their very best customers.

We’ll show you the way to always knowing what to say.