The skills that the Strategos must possess differ from the skills essentially by their particularity of origin, since it is necessary to understand that the skills are traits that individually characterize people. While skills can be developed with continuous practice and based on experience, skills have a greater or lesser degree of quality according to the dispositions of each person.
Although there are continuing controversies on the subject, there is no important justification for understanding that skills cannot, to a large extent, be cultivated and developed, at least to the extent that they become consistent with the nature of the functions to be practiced. In fact, it will also have to be understood that skills may be more important differentiating factors than skills between Strategos, because they are somewhat further from these to develop solely as a product of exercise and experience. Picasso's aptitude for painting is necessarily a distance that must be recognized when compared to anyone else's art abilities. Napoleon's skills for Strategy will not be easily attainable in terms of effort,exercise or experience. From there to back everything continues as a continuum of effort and dedication.
Skills work in strategic effort like rain does with fields provided for planting and harvesting. Skills are not involved in the critical path of strategic work in a formal or methodological way. Their presence is never solicited as part of the process, none of them are demanded of Strategos the way it is with skills and other knowledge. Skills simply come like rain on the field: when they must arrive and to fulfill a fundamental task. All the effort of sowing is immeasurably superior to the simple fact that it rains when it should, and yet it is an effort that leads to nothing without the simple accident of the water falling from the sky.
Skills are like this: they are involved with the process the moment their presence is essential, then they define and determine the results, without anyone having been especially aware of it. Its absence determines the failure of the most brilliant approaches, of the most qualified resources, of the victories that are "at hand".
Strategos builds its competitive advantage around its abilities, complements them with the indispensable knowledge and with the practice of the necessary skills.
The specific mention of skills cannot be avoided, but its purpose lies above all in the need for the Strategos to realize their vital importance and in turn cultivate them seriously and with patience. The purpose is that the Strategos examines the conditions that it has in terms of them and that it does not understand them and deals with the inertial logic that they naturally have. It can be understood that if the rain does not come, it does not come, period, and so the rest of the efforts end, but it is a real absurd to ignore the vital importance that it has to complete the work.
Among all the skills that can be considered important and interesting, here are some, those that are essential.
Aptitude of Control over himself that guarantees personal control of situations and even control of opponents (Control of emotions).-
The "Own Domain" is an indispensable state for the strategic exercise. The control of emotions is a vital balancing mechanism for the very character that the Conflict has, since it is covered with some elements of the greatest intensity that man knows. That eloquent phrase of Patton must not be forgotten: "compared to war, all other forms of human behavior are insignificant." And the character of the "war" is only a matter of degree, of volume: different only in that sense in the military world or in the business world.
It is easy to assume the nature of the underlying effects when the Conflict is not treated with high doses of Self-Control; there the equilibrium disappears, there the fire is fought with flammable fuel, the flames are fanned, to a point where the fire ends up prevailing.
If the Strategos does not have the ability to control itself then it does not have the ability to control the Conflict and nothing else has to be done in strategic logic.
In the strategic game reason must impose its good arguments on the set of emotions. Without it there is not the slightest chance of victory. In the strategic game the call is established for the reason precisely because the game itself is full of emotions. From here it must be concluded in something important: this game does not seek to eliminate emotions, it does not pretend to ignore them, nor perhaps ignore their participation in the process. The game is precisely full of emotions, they are there because they respond to a call of the very nature of the game, they are found everywhere, in every gap and in every moment of the development of the Strategy and the Conflict. They will never disappear by absurd effort that is imprinted on the task, they will remain impassive as long as a human being exists.Because emotions are ultimately the very fuel of man, the food of the soul and its driving force.
The objective is Control, simply, and nothing more. Emotions must be controlled; your impulse must be balanced with an opposing force to moderate its effects and channel your energies. This opposite force is reason.
Reason is accompanied by a vast instrumental of logic, common sense, principle, urgency, convenience, conviction. And all this puts him before the runaway emotion in the form of a clear thought, an argument.
When the reason is mentioned with a utilitarian criterion, it is often difficult to "apprehend" it, its concept is so vast and complex that the understanding of its mere mention is only something "reasonable". It is necessary to point out vehemently that reason must be transformed into a clear Thought or an Argument to take precedence over emotions. Clear thinking is a product of reason that incorporates intentionality and has action as its final objective. The Argument is a structure of reasoning, elaborated with reflection.
In order to control its own emotions, the Strategos must have a Clear Thought regarding its objectives, it must be provided with a solid Argument that supports them. He must be absolutely conscious and convinced that nothing can come between him and the attainment of that objective; that precisely repeats Thought to him incessantly, that is what his Arguments demand.
The very desire to make this Thought prevail becomes at the same time an emotion that sustains the process, thereby building a useful and beneficial channel for the development of energies. Napoleon confessed that the moment of his military readings was plunging into painful agitation, he looked like a young woman giving birth, but this did not prevent him from being serene before the people around him, and when he made a decision everything was forgotten, except what was necessary to achieve victory. This is, exactly, Control of Emotions: to feel them ardently, there in the depth of what one is, to have the capacity to remain impassive before the others even though the emotions burn from within and the moment of acting forget everything, except the thought clear and the argument that leads to obtaining the results.In this way the human being works like those steam machines that reach an internal boil and channel that enormous energy to a precise point, one that generates a vital, giant, powerful movement. In man, boiling is achieved through emotions, but control allows that force to be directed to a precise point and from there to move the machinery that thought has created to act according to objectives.but control allows that force to be directed to a precise point and from there to move the machinery that thought has created to act according to objectives.but control allows that force to be directed to a precise point and from there to move the machinery that thought has created to act according to objectives.
If this "internal vapor" is not controlled, then it goes anywhere, it does not move anything in particular, it can burn everyone around and ends up finding a victim in its own creator.
Always putting Clear Thought before Emotion when it comes to strategic endeavors, requires a lot of will power and discipline. Natural fitness is reinforced and fed by them. In this way a difference is established with the opponent as important as that which is dictated by the degree of Aptitude itself. Force of will and discipline, both restless tenants and wandering of our personality, beautiful jewels that, so hidden, deprive of exceptional wealth.
1) Memory.
Probably the best way to understand the importance of an “Aptitude for Memory” by Strategos, is to refer to the nature of what the Strategic Principles themselves are: they represent the collective memory of thousands and thousands of conflicts, of thousands and thousands of strategies invested in solving them, of thousands and thousands of Strategos involved; all this in thousands and thousands of years of human history.
The collective memory accumulates experiences and reason discriminates them, interprets them and gets ready for the next action. The memory holds valuable details of the experience, not only the memory of it as such, but also the intrinsic variables involved.
It is curious to see how those people who do not have this memory ability, end up remembering the experiences as "packaged events", they can effectively remember if the experience was good or not, but they do not have the possibility to remember the details that they conditioned, the independent facts that explained them, the motives, the cause - effect relationships.
The saying states that "the devil is in the details" and few statements have so much truth. Details can end with an Organization, just as they can end with love, loyalty, or good intentions. The details are behind the success and failure of major ventures.
While there are countless resources to deal with the existence of details in a formal process of government or administration, far fewer are the resources to identify the details that have been part of a past experience. Among them not only stands out, also reigns, the Memory.
The strategic wisdom that governs the actions that we undertake today is the product of past experiences and therefore an effective Memory constitutes an element of great virtue for the Strategos.
The Report must be focused on the details, the rest everyone remembers or the formal records account. The details, on the other hand, not only that they are not recorded, it is impossible to do it !, beyond the task being undertaken with the help of all available technology.
They say that if someone had the possibility of transcribing in a document the detail of all the experiences of a person, the biography would not fit in the volumes that house the largest of human libraries. It only remains to think what dimension this reaches when it comes to collective phenomena.
The Memory thus exercises property and right where nothing and nobody else can do it.
Strategic experiences, positive and negative, should be remembered in their details, in their reasons, in their cause-effect relationships, in the tactical actions undertaken by individuals, in the characteristics of the context. And they must also be temporized, they must respond to the particularities of the moment and place of the events.
If all these elements are preserved in the Memory of the Strategos, its current strategic approach is clothed with an invisible wealth, with enormous power; effectiveness has an additional guarantee that, on the other hand, is also significantly efficient, because all recollection of experience helps to avoid mistakes, reduces costs and expenses.
On the other hand, the resources of the Memory are invaluable in the exercise of the Tactic, up to a point that can allow anticipating the actions of the opponent, for the simple fact of "remembering" their reactions and their behaviors before certain stimuli.
Well, everyone has a Memory, but this one that the Strategos particularly needs emerges out of the average, it must be built precisely between the cracks left by the average, it must rise up where everyone considers it unnecessary, in that region that is dark for the I forget many, but it illuminates the path of few, of those who strive to work it.
2) Empathy.
Empathy is that effort to identify with the feeling of another or of other people.
While Strategos is required to have the necessary ability to Control their Emotions, they are simultaneously asked to be a suitable "receiver" of the feelings of others.
The Strategos is a catalyst for the feelings of the people who work in the development of the Strategy, and to properly fulfill this vital function, it must be able to search in depth, appliedly, the causes and the nature of what others feel. It is imperative for you to get to the origin of these feelings, you are required to try to understand them to the exact point where they become truly incomprehensible and you are required to take them into account personally, as one of the justifications that guide your action.
If the Strategos cannot properly "tune in" to the feelings of others, then it is incapable of harnessing the energies that emerge from the Organization, in fact it becomes a recipient of those that the engineers call "fools", "dead". Such a receiver can never "emit" anything.
The path here is obviously two-way: if there is no Empathy there is no use of energy. And this puts the effectiveness of the Strategy at enormous risk.
Identifying with the feeling of others is, on the other hand, the fundamental starting point to change things, if this were necessary; Under no circumstances does Empathy seek the preservation of the states if it does not lead to profit. The enormous difference lies in that the identification with the feeling of others allows Strategos to approach the change of state or the solution of the problem from the very root of the elements that provoke it, with the essential care of the sensitivity of others, which in Much of it is already their own, since Empathy has been presented. Changes or solutions from a state of Empathy always start from a better port and reach a better destination, because they are changes that are appropriately "sensitized".
Sometimes the Strategos and many other people who carry out management functions in organizations, forget by simple habit or mechanics the enormous hidden cost that accompanies the change or problem solving processes. They demand significant resources and time, sometimes they have long “post-operative” effects, they cause distances, divisions, etc. These costs are easily assumed, almost in the midst of routine or under the precept that states "the need to break eggs to make tortillas."
All the costs, time, and traumatic effects of change and problem solving are greatly reduced with a leader who has the capacity to achieve Empathy and thereby adopt duly sensitized change and solution processes.
On the other hand, the leadership hierarchy itself increases as Strategos reaches higher degrees of Empathy. Recognition of one's situation, difficulties, challenges, etc. it increases as the situations, difficulties, challenges of others are also recognized. This is the enormous power of integral wealth: giving to receive.
When the leader recognizes, he receives recognition; when he identifies he receives identification; when you strive for others, you receive effort from others; When you support, you receive support.
And in this process who wins the most is Strategos himself.
3) Negotiation.
From the moment that the Strategos has control over a function that will allow reaching certain objectives, it is subject to environmental and circumstantial forces that will exert pressure to “take away” time, resources, energy, focus, etc. In reality, all plans and all actions are subject to these reactive forces that apply "brake", which generate opposition. This is a matter even of a physical nature and is, of course, absolutely normal.
The Strategos will be forced to resort to every element that exists in its personal and professional arsenal to avoid that the reactive forces impede the fulfillment of its purposes and limit its actions. These reactive forces will come from all sides, not exclusively from the Conflict.
As someone who owns a lot, the Strategos must assume the need to "give and take" whatever is necessary to accomplish the task. On the one hand, you cannot simply assume that you will not be deprived of anything, and on the other, you must not be willing to compromise beyond what is indicated by convenience. Above all, the scope of the objectives is imposed.
Discerning this reality leads directly to treating what Negotiation means as an act of government. Each definition that exists on the subject contributes in one way or another to the development of the strategic task, therefore it is essential among the skills that the Strategos must have.
Let's see some definitions of Negotiation:
"Grant with the purpose of reaching a mutual agreement."
The act of granting represents resigning the right or guardianship over any particular possession, be it of a physical or ideological nature. And little doubt should remain in the Strategos when understanding the word "resign" because it has almost an imperative character between the margins of the negotiation. If it is not resigned, that is to say if it is not granted, neither is an agreement of common benefit or reciprocal utility reached between the parties. And as long as that agreement does not exist, neither can the best disposition or a happy ending in things be expected.
When the natural reactive forces require from the Strategos time, resources, modification of tasks, objectives, etc., it will have to grant up to the point of not being harmed and to the point of not having notably harmed the interest of the reactive forces.
Now, when the reference reaches the reactive forces, it does not have to be understood that they represent desires of injury, damage or unjustified annoyance of their own intentions; In reality, the reactive forces may be perfectly in tune with the general efforts, but in turn represent particular interests that also do the task: this may be the case when a Strategos is forced to negotiate common interests with those responsible for Logistics, for example.. In this case, Logistics represents a reactive force, while interposing its own interests between the previous definitions that the Strategos maintains. If on the one hand it is understood that Logistics is making use of a natural right and that this will not be resolved by the simple maintenance of its own arguments,then it is necessary to negotiate, to make prevail as far as possible the vision and the interest that is sustained.
It is well seen that this Negotiation will involve concessions and this requires a lot of talent, so that among these concessions the damage does not arise.
Powerfully striking is how difficult it is for many people (and of course for many Strategos) just to "give up positions with an advantage", or in other words, to have the conviction and security that advantage and success are found behind the concession. It is not usual to find this way of seeing things, at least not as usual as the need to practice them.
Herein lies specifically the ability to negotiate: in that art of granting to reach an agreement of explicit benefit to our interests. Whoever assumes that in life they will not have to negotiate anything is a fool and a worse epithet can be reserved if this conviction is sustained by the Strategos who, no more and no less, develops in the Conflict.
If this is a game where concessions will necessarily have to be made, at one time or another, over and over again, then it is well worth mastering the art of making concessions to advantage, this is the art. to negotiate.
Another definition of Negotiation contributes a lot with this idea:
"Process in which you win, when both parties lose."
Or let's understand it this way: Process in which no one loses, when both parties win. On the one hand or the other, the concession, the act of yielding, is necessarily infiltrated, either in this loss the profit is found or with it the loss of others is avoided and a winning agreement is achieved.
In reality the only part that loses everything is the one that does not Negotiate at all. Thereafter, and with more or less aptitude for the act, everyone loses less negotiating. And whoever has more and less negotiates, more loses; This is the dangerous case of the Strategos who in fact has control of the entire Strategy and therefore must be a front-line negotiator.
Probably the most interesting definition of Negotiation is the following:
"Means by which one comes as close as possible to a required goal, using whatever strategies, tactics, techniques, and arguments are within the limits of right, current ethics, and law."
The affirmation of "as close as possible to the required goal" is again an allusion to the concession that is necessary for the Negotiation to be perfected and in fact to the natural existence of the reactive forces. It is assumed "from now" the probability of not achieving, through negotiation, everything one would like, but it is required that this gap be as narrow as possible.
What is important and useful is that this definition of Negotiation refers directly to the fulfillment of a goal, the fulfillment of an objective, the fulfillment of a purpose. Negotiation skills allow the Strategos to be effective in pursuing its objectives, it forces it to achieve them, even mediating the need to have to make intelligent concessions. All means to achieve the objectives are justified as long as they conform to what is correct, current ethics and the law. This statement is also powerful, illustrative, and who would say it: direct daughter of the concept of Negotiation.
A final definition and a very common use can also be very illustrative:
" Everything in life is negotiated."
For some reason and somehow the term Negotiate is so close to the term of Business. Because if the latter maintains by concept that in life everything is sold, the other convincingly affirms that everything is negotiated.
Strategos negotiates with the Sovereign, negotiates with its peers, negotiates with its subordinates, negotiates with suppliers, negotiates with clients, and can even negotiate with its opponents. And everything that these relationships involve is subject to Negotiation, whether it is because something is asked of the Strategos or something that the Strategos asks for. This really opens up a world full of opportunities, and having the aptitude to take advantage of them is something very important and sensible.
4) Decision.
It is essential that the Strategos be a determined and determined person. The hesitations in the strategic universe have a very high cost, they are probably the most important competitive advantages that can be granted or that can be obtained from the opponent. Hesitations and doubts represent valuable time in self-effort and even more precious time in the hands of the competitor.
When the Strategos is asked to be a determined person, it is simultaneously required to extreme resources in the analysis and reflection processes that precede the action and the strategic dynamics, so that when the time comes to get moving the doubts have been left behind, the possibilities of delaying the decisions have been considered in previous stages and the only thing that remains is to start the operations themselves.
When all pre-action considerations have been appropriately carried out, then resolve and decision-making character is only a matter of Strategos personal fitness.
And strange as it may seem, this is not an aptitude that abounds. Decision making always ends up being a delicate process, even more so when it involves acts of transcendence as in the case of Strategos. It is difficult to make decisions with security and confidence, that is in the very nature of man, who in essence will always tend to reduce risks that may affect him. And every decision, of course, involves some degree of risk. The previous considerations and reflections only lead to trying to reduce this risk. In no case can they annul it completely because every decision determines facts in the future and the exact detail of it is private to man.
When referring to or looking for a determined man, the subject is often approached considering the person's ability to face the risk in a sensible way. On the one hand, that it has the capacity to face risks without fear, but on the other, that it does not take this process to an extreme that marginalizes prudence and wisdom. The balance is delicate.
The risk in essence is made up of probabilities of contingencies that may emerge beyond everything foreseen and planned. Contingencies determine the existence of risk, its probability of occurrence generates insecurity when making decisions. However, the determined man finds in this very virtue the possibility of facing them. Resolution and firm decision constitute the appropriate skills to face contingencies, in the same way that they are requirements to make previous decisions. Contingencies can suffocate a man who is not very determined and determined, while someone who is not, they only qualify and perfect in virtue.
A basic fact should never be forgotten: if there is no risk, there is also no victory. It is necessary to take risks on the road to success, and this is explained very closely by the need to make decisions. It should be possible to interpret risk as an opportunity, given that he himself brings victory.
On the other hand, the risks must be faced by all, nobody is exempt from having to assume them, much less the competitor. Here in fact there is a level playing field and therefore resolution and the ability to make firm decisions makes the difference.
Since the ability to make decisions and face risks responds more to an ability than to a skill, it is difficult to determine the factors and mechanics that allow its occurrence. In many cases, the analysis must conclude by presenting the circumstances that facilitate decision-making in an Organization: plans that respond to an applied analysis of all the variables that make them up and that condition them, awareness processes of those plans to determine the areas of tolerance they may have, prior evaluation of critical and unscheduled situations that may arise (the famous mechanics of "crisis management teams"), optional responses to contingencies, the famous "emergency plans", etc.Among all these considerations and mechanics is an implicit reduction of risk and an analysis of eventual responses and organizational reaction to contingencies and unforeseen events.
Another factor that helps a lot to reach increasingly important levels of resolution in decision making is, without a doubt, training. Through it, the occurrence of events is anticipated, responses are meditated and practiced, problems are assumed and solutions are assumed, skills are perfected and the sense of security is progressively increased.
Lastly, the need for the Strategos to be properly mentalized and focused on the task that corresponds to carry it out is equally or more important. This process of "mentalization" also anticipates facts and circumstances, inertially ponders options and responses, mentally creates possible scenarios and possible responses. And it also reaches, finally, a "zone of greater comfort" and safety. Herein lies the professional sense of the Strategos task: in the need to “live” the circumstances, not only when they are occurring, but also when they have not yet done so.
All these considerations should help man to feel secure enough to face the risks involved in any decision and therefore reach the resolution demanded by the nature of the Conflict and the essence of the Strategy.
Whiting Charles, Patton, Editorial San Martin Bookstore, Second Edition, Madrid Spain, 1979.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary.
Anonymous, cited by Robinson Colin, Como Negociar, Legis Fondo Editorial, First Edition, Colombia, 1992.
Robinson Colin, Op Cit, Pag 45.
