"Seeing later is not worth, what is worth is seeing first and being prepared" José Martí
SUMMARY
A strategist questions life. He has a certain fascinating charisma, he seduces us precisely what makes him different from the average: he does not agree, he waits more, he is sure of himself, he looks for good questions anywhere and, fundamentally, he has assumed that it is up to him and nobody else build the future you dream of and are passionate about. Knowing the profile of a Strategist constitutes an excellent guide to consult in the face of the inevitable bifurcations of life, private and business, it sets development goals and effective feedback regarding our usual performance.
1. Strategic Attitude
The vast majority of the works that we can find on Strategy abound in considerations about how to compete more effectively, what variables intervene and define this process, but it is a fact that the figure of the Strategist and his distinctive personality are quite often overlooked. We could count the exceptions, one of the most notable and recent perhaps from the academic world: "The Mind of the Strategist" (1990) by K. Ohmae.
Of course, wherever scientific thought leaves a gap, art is installed there and that is how we find multiple approaches to the strategist in excellent biographies on Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Mao Tse Tung, and so many leaders and warlords that they marked universal history.
Closer to the Caribbean and within the course of our history we will also feel the impact of a Simón Bolívar, an Emiliano Zapata, Máximo Gómez, Antonio Maceo, José Martí, Che, Fidel… the list would be frankly endless. All have recorded emotional feats, difficult moments, profound spiritual vicissitudes, creative initiatives, shared visions that generate new realities, scenes that lead to a characteristic psychological profile that the literature on strategy neglects more than once.
For all this, it is important to begin our journey towards Strategic Management by examining a possible model of the strategist that at the same time makes it possible to review our performance and set development goals. We need to recognize it, without the right attitude we will surely be a hindrance when trying to strategically project the company. The strategist's mind has already overcome prejudices, regrets, indecisions, also the low disposition to risk or not wanting to dream.
A strategist questions life. He has a certain fascinating charisma, he seduces us precisely what makes him different from the average: he is not satisfied, he waits more, he is sure of himself, he looks for good questions anywhere and, fundamentally, he has assumed that it is his turn and no one else. build the future you dream of and are passionate about. The vast majority of people, on the other hand, tend to wait for things to happen, they do not know each other well enough or are not enthusiastic enough about their destiny.
So let's summarize the qualities that we could consider prototypical of a Strategist (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Prototype of a Strategist. 10 fundamental traits
This image is a comprehensive outline of the quarterback's characteristics. Each attribute achieves its full meaning and benefits from the previous and next trait. Let's do a more detailed analysis.
2. Examining the prototype of a strategist
“How could we think of acting like a strategist without looking far, wide, deep; take risks, think about man?… Contemplating the future, the present is transformed ”(Berger, 1964. Cit. by Godet, p. 9)
For G. Berger the future becomes the reason for being of the present. That is the distinctive attitude of the strategist, who not only looks at the here and now, the short term, but everything makes sense when he focuses on the distance. The strategist is basically engrossed in conquering the future.
It is appreciated that talking about strategists is talking about a very important change in attitude. For those who, because of the education and instruction received, experiences, stimuli, culture, etc., their style of thinking is rather traditional, this Strategic Attitude becomes a true mental revolution, a paradigm shift that will turn them into a a fuller person, above all, because he will perceive that he has regained control, that it is worth committing himself, that he understands the circumstances that surround him and life is an exciting challenge where it is possible to declare oneself optimistic.
A strategic thinker, in addition to looking ahead, will always have a Sequence Perception. As a film strip visualizes the unfolding of events, what their actions will be on the fly, it chains one action to another seeking to provoke the desired effect. Their actions are characterized by mutually supportive. We could say that there are no isolated pieces in his game.
On the other hand, when we approach the personality and history of a strategist, that quality of his, almost feline, that we call Discretion, the reserve with which he acts, the enigma that he represents for us, will always call our attention. It usually compartmentalizes relevant information and circulates it at the right time and level. Strategy is not possible if it is known or copied by the wrong person. From a true strategist we will see the tactic, but never, unless he explains it to us, the ultimate meaning of his movements, his Strategic Objectives.
The strategist's goals will usually be associated with long and uneven roads to travel, paths that are made for him by walking, remembering the song. In this transit, the authentic strategist shows us another important strength: his Adaptability. You stop often and perceive the range of possible alternatives, weighing the costs and benefits of each, "what if…?", "What would be the best course of action…?"
Interesting and difficult is this ability to adjust to the situation by sometimes renouncing one's own ego; a skill that is known from long ago (Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 500 years BC) but that few develop. The way of thinking and proceeding of a strategist is neither static nor predictable. It is so flexible that it can confuse competitors and actors in general on the scene where it operates. And we are not talking about those "smoke screens" expressly manufactured to mislead the adversary, we are pointing to the admirable ability it has to decipher the situation and the most productive and intelligent behavior of which it is capable, taking into account its real possibilities.
"It may be a lion that attacks fiercely…, or it may be a chameleon that camouflages itself to go unnoticed as it advances and leaves its competition behind (…) The strategist is the little mustard seed germinating in the middle of the big trees of the forest…" (Ribas, 2002)
Seeing the above, perhaps we make up a somewhat cold image of the strategist, excessively calculating, but it is not exactly like that. H. Mintzberg when talking about the "Craft Strategies" brings us the concept of a quite experiential strategic process, where we make contact with the "mass", the raw material of our thought (Ref. By Thompson and Strickland III, 1994) We feel the problem, we ambition a position, we are attracted by one or more alternatives. From this sense, since thought and emotion can never be separated, it is impossible to conceive the strategist as someone cold, on the contrary, he is usually very emotionally involved with the destiny of his organization.
From here comes the strategist that essential ability: knowing how to convince, persuade, sell the idea for its benefits. Already as a Leader or Advisor, this person knows how to infect others with respect to his vision, builds a bridge to the future and sincerely motivates us to walk through it, crushes by combining strokes of logic and that sixth sense that we respect. A strategist must be Convincing, master the art of communication, or the strategic process will never start, it will barely warm the engines.
Paying attention to the reflections of the strategist we will find another special attraction, his Creativity. He often applies the principle that solving new problems requires new ideas and purely logical thinking is limited to achieve them. For this reason, the strategist appeals to what E. de Bono (1970) calls Lateral Thinking, since he is looking for unconventional solutions.
"The mind tends to create fixed models of concepts, which will limit the use of the new information available unless there is some means of restructuring existing models, objectively updating them with new data" (de Bono, 1970. Cit. by Mentruyt, 2002)
That is what it is about, to restructure thought patterns in a creative way. But not only lateral or divergent thinking, using the original terminology (Guilford, 1951) supports the creativity of the strategist. It also uses another essential quality: it focuses on the whole and considers it more important than the sum of the parts. A holistic thought captures the situations as a whole, thanks to it it is still possible to see the forest beyond the trees.
Looking at everything, breaking schemes, the strategy is born from a process that is half technical, half art. It is not an easy process, it hurts, it confuses. In it there is no room for conservative minds, attached to rules and dogmas that do not transcend the moment for whatever reasons. The creative thought prevails against a strong contrary current incubator of many conflicts.
“True creativity - recalls R. Farson (1997) - always breaks the rules. This is why it is so unmanageable and that in many companies, when we talk about wanting creativity, we are actually referring to manageable creativity. We do not want the pure, spectacular, radical creativity that requires us to change ”(Farson, Ch. 18)
This "manageable creativity" constitutes a significant discouragement to original thinking with a future burden. Not for nothing did TA Edison say that witty thinking is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Much work and effort must be made to overcome resistance to change.
Now, thinking about this creative-artistic trait of the strategist, another valid question arises. By virtue of his creativity, does the strategist then go to the extreme of irrationality and pure intuition? Mr. Strategy, as K. Ohmae2 is known, fully clarifies this point.
Strategists do not reject analysis or reason. In fact, they work permanently doing analysis, but they use it only to stimulate the creative process, to test the ideas that arise, to find out the strategic consequences or not to fail in the execution of "crazy" ideas that have great possibilities and that, of course. otherwise they would never have been put into practice. Analysis is the starting point for strategic thinking. The strategic thinker faces problems, trends, or situations that seem to constitute a harmonious whole. The strategist must dismember that whole into its constituent parts and, once he knows the meaning of each part, he must put them back together, trying to make the most of the company's competitive advantage. The solution obtained in this way is different from that obtained with linear thinking,since we have identified and studied the elements concerning our problem and we have organized them in a relevant way (Ohmae, 1990)
"But they use it to stimulate the creative process…", the analysis is valid, essential, but not in the sense of logical - linear thinking that avoids novelty, but rather as a support for creative and visionary thinking. For this, it is essential to get rid of the pre-elaborated conditions and criteria, the "should" and the "cannot be" will have to be supplanted by a resounding "What (else) can be done?" The strategy is always inclusive. We frankly need to reprogram ourselves day by day, to exercise this way of thinking and being. Our environment has changed too much to continue being effective with the styles and schemes of before and it is urgent to apprehend new skills.
In another vein, the strategist, as a man of action, stands out for the presence of a strong personality factor: Willful - Sure of Yes - Self-critical. It is a constellation of closely related features. For this person the world waits for us to be changed and improved, in fact, taking the initiative is one of his dearest goals.
Behind the disposition to action we discover an individual who trusts himself, who has accumulated enough experiences to judge his real possibilities, in the last case a person with a lucid perception of himself, his weak sides and strengths, and therefore the opportunities you can take advantage of.
To conclude this characterization, I draw attention to that last trait of the strategist: Demand. For this it is impossible to be self-indulgent, not to demand the maximum from each situation, each analysis, each person, because their task is to “snatch” an achievable future, which we understand to be valuable and it is our intention to conquer. A strategist is by definition a dissatisfied person, sometimes difficult to understand, who does not accept less than everything possible…
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Farson, R.: Administration of the Absurd. Paradoxes in Leadership. Prentice Hall, Digital Edition, Mexico, 1997.
Godet, M.: The Toolbox of Strategic Foresight. GERPA, fourth updated edition. Paris, 2000.
Mentruyt, O.: Creativity and Intelligence. March 2002. Available at:
www.monografias.com/trabajos10/monogra/monogra.shtml
Ohmae, K.: The Mind of the Strategist. McGraw-Hill / Interamericana de España SA 1990.
Ribas, JF: How a Strategist thinks. March 2002. Available at:
www.gestiopolis.com/canales/gerencial/articulos/63/estratega.htm
Thompson, AA and AJ Strickland III: Direction and Strategic Management. Concepts, Cases and Readings. Ed. Addison-Wesley Iberoamericana, SA Wilmington, Delaware, 1994.
