THINKING AND DOING

I should say here that the word ‘strategy’ is bandied about a lot. It always sounds good, in every speech or presentation, but it does not always make sense. We call concepts ‘strategic concepts’, decisions ‘strategic decisions’, investments ‘strategic investments’, and so on, when most of these things are just tactics.

Therefore bear in mind three important things about strategy:

1. A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.

2. Strategy is long term, tactics are short term. You don’t change your strategy every day!

3. You can never split strategy from implementation (from doing things).

That said, strategic planning is of interest for every individual’s communication. Many of today’s well-known actors, soccer players, writers and politicians have a strategic communication plan. Why? It provides direction and meaning. You know where you want to go. This eliminates doubts, eases decisions in daily life and therefore positively affects your future. You can focus your strength, time, energy (and of course money), leverage and skills on your most important opportunities, thus significantly increasing results and, undoubtedly, enhancing your quality of life.

Strategic planning — analysing a situation and evaluating the options to reach a defined goal in complex and ever-changing environments — is fundamental in branding. It aims to define the fundamentals on which you will take decisions and define actions that further shape your future based on ‘who you are’, ‘where you want to go’, ‘what you do’, ‘when you will do it’ and ‘how you will do it’.

Great books about strategy like Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (more than 2,500 years old!) or Carl Von Clausewitz’s On War refer to its military origin but nowadays they have become popular business books.

Understanding our personality by identifying our potential, interests and motivations forms the basis for developing strategies. Equally, strategy without creativity is nothing. Strategy doesn’t work in a team which shares objectives but not values.

This is especially true in collaborations where each of the members take decisions based on different values. If the environment is a very important issue to you, but not for the others in your team, you will end up going your separate ways, even though you have a common goal.There are two other points to be made here.

First, it doesn’t make sense to define a strategy which cannot be implemented with the available resources. That means if you don’t have the time, the money or the skills to develop that great film you want to get made it is not very good strategy to put a lot of energy into it. That doesn’t mean you have to give up the idea of making a film altogether, but maybe aim at a low-budget short film that is more focused on concept and idea rather than on special effects and amazing locations.

Secondly, strategy is the plan, but you also need real action. Bear in mind that the average person who acts is much more successful than the genius who doesn’t act. But acting without thinking is a waste of time. Thinking and doing are equally important. Otherwise we belong to those who have great ideas, but will never ever get them off the ground.