January 24, 2012 at 6:23 am, by Carl

A few weeks ago I wrote about choices made by two football coaches were conservative and in the end cost their team victories.  In describing those choices, what I was discussing were tactical decisions made by the coaches.  As I was writing, I described how my own approach to decisions is sometimes hampered by my strategic vision.  Strategy and tactics are partners in making decisions, accomplishing things, but they are not synonyms.

 

You often hear these words used in connection with war, so if you look them up, you’ll see military descriptions used first.  Yet, for the rest of us, the idea of tactics or strategy are useful in making good decisions and plans for our future.  So, what do these two words really mean?

 

Tactics, according to Webster’s, is “the art or skill of employing available means to accomplish an end.”  In other words, tactics involves making an “on the spot” decision about employing your skills, your means, your efforts to meet a goal.

 

Strategy, on the other hand, takes the longer or higher or deeper view about the issue.  The Google definition says “A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.”  Webster’s adds “the art of devising or employing plans toward a goal.”

 

For our uses, think of it this way.  When you think about an overall issue whether that is deciding on a major or making vacation plans, you use strategy to build a plan, consider your strengths and weaknesses, constraints and opportunities.  Then, as you put the plan into action, you bring in tactics to accomplish the end, including minute shifts and changes as new information comes up.

 

Your strategy of taking a certain class during a certain semester will then need tactics to ensure that you pass the class.  And, while your strategy may have hoped to take a certain professor or avoid having too many essays to write, as you come into the class, you find out that your professor had to drop the class due to an illness or that an extra essay was included in the course.  Now, you have to apply good tactics to accomplish working with a new professor or making sure you finish the paper.

 

Your strategy determined that you would travel on a certain Interstate and then visit a specific museum.  Yet, as you drove, you found yourself facing a 3 hour backup on the road, so good tactics would take your available means, say a map or GPS, to find a new route.  Then when you got to the museum, you found it closed on this day, so now you had to employ good tactics to rearrange the travel day, moving events from the next day to now, or finding what other options would be open today.

 

You need both strategy and tactics.  Want to get better at strategy?  Play chess.  Better at tactics?  Play checkers.  Both games certainly use tactics and strategy, but chess strengthens your ability to strategize a long-term plan, which checkers moves more quickly, often turning quickly, demanding that you bring in good tactics to the game.