Strategy versus tactics

We haveall heard the words ‘strategy’ and ‘tactic’ – many of us probablyunderstand them as interchangeable. When asked though, most struggle todefine the difference between the two. At its most basic level, strategy is the “what” and tactic is the “how”.Let’sstart with the “what”. What are you looking to achieve at the toplevel? Strategy isn’t always tangible, which is why it’s often skippedin favour of tactics. The risk with an emphasis on tactics is that it’svery easy to become fixated on being busy without making certain you’redoing the right things at the right time.Equally, teams are far lesslikely to be motivated if they don’t know what all their hard work issupposed to accomplish. Without a clear strategy, people are left toguess what’s important and what to prioritise, and there is little or nosynergy between different divisions, functions and employees.It’snatural then to think that strategy is more important than tactics – butagain, that’s a common mistake. If strategic thinking is about what youwant to accomplish, tactics provide structure to those broad,aspirational thoughts. A strategy without tactics is a dream, not aplan.So how then, do we differentiate effectively between these two misunderstood phrases?1. Strategy is stable, consistent and long-term 2. Tactics can change regularly and rapidly to achieve your strategy and according to results 3.  Strategy and tactics should be aligned and work together4. If a tactic is not contributing to your overarching strategy, it should be changed5. You can have multiple tactics simultaneously working to achieve your strategyForexample, a company may have a low performing product; their strategymight be to increase exposure and awareness of that product in aspecific region. One of their tactics could be co-ordinating productroadshows and a series of events where people can experience theproduct. If they didn’t see the desired results, their strategy wouldstill remain the same, but they would try a different approach (tactic).The strength of your strategy and tactics are critical to theoverall quality and efficiency of your performance and success. Keepyour strategy consistent and ensure everyone in your organisationunderstands it. This will enable them to identify the most appropriatetactics and how they are contributing to achieving the goals of theorganisation.* S Zuhair Naqvi is the Managing Director of DicoTech Qatar WLL, and an EMBA alumnus of HEC Paris, Class of 2016.