Philosophy of Strategy
I am a philosopher by training and have been teaching philosophy for the last 20 years in a parallel career, as a volunteer. However, I began my education in engineering, soon moved into business administration, and finally arrived at the field that I now believe contributes the most to the development of strategic thinking. Besides my MBA and the two postgraduate degrees I completed at two brilliant business schools in the UK, I must confess that Plato and Confucius are still my best friends.
If philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, let us seek wisdom in and through strategy.
From the simple understanding that every conscious effort to win is a form of strategy to the broader definition of strategy as the discipline of victory - a little bit of science and a lot of art - that applies in many different contexts (military, business, politics, sports, etc.), let us dig deeper and explore some of its surrounding ideas.
We can outline a philosophy of strategy through four dimensions: Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology, and Axiology. These dimensions are clearly interrelated, yet we can still distill a few thoughts about each of them.
Ontology: What kind of being is strategy? Strategy is a relational being with an intention to move. It is relational because it has no reality in isolated entities; it always emerges at the interface between two or more agents. It has an intention to move because, in Aristotelian terms, there is always the potential for becoming actuality. If there were complete satisfaction with the current situation, there would be no strategy at all.
From an epistemological perspective, we may reflect on how strategic knowledge is built. We can consider logical processes such as deduction, induction, and abduction. But we should also uncover the importance of analogy, metaphor, and symbolic thinking.
Still within epistemology, there is a constant question: what is a strategic issue, anyway? It is wrong - or at least incomplete - to answer this as if it referred only to C-suite decisions. I prefer to define a strategic issue more intrinsically, that is, according to the cognitive process involved rather than the subject matter itself. Thus, perhaps we should distinguish strategic from non-strategic thinking by observing how people think and behave, not by the position they occupy.
Methodologies are abundant. Unfortunately, we often see the whole field reduced to methods and tools. It should not be so. Strategic thinking is weakened when it becomes excessively dependent on tools. They cease to be mere instruments and begin taking the place of the main actor, who is, of course, the strategist.
The axiology of strategy is probably its most important dimension. In fact, it is an overarching one, because the values and principles underlying the strategic process affect all the others. It naturally leads us to the subjects of ethics and morality.
Imagine the combination of power and ethics. You may picture a powerless person with strong moral principles - but little good will come from that alone. Or you may think of the many destructive leaders who had the power to shape history but lacked ethical foundations. Although they possessed power, we would probably agree the world would have been better had they not exercised it as they did. Therefore, the ideal condition for a strategist is to possess both: the power to make things happen, combined with timeless and universal values that transcend culture, geography, and historical period.
Let us continue developing this subject. I am currently writing my next book, which is precisely titled Philosophy of Strategy. It will be published in January. Until then, I hope you discover new layers of this fascinating discipline - a discipline that is, at once, science, art, and philosophy.
The final point I would like to mention, and leave as a closing reflection, is also ontological, although more specifically related to what we might call the teleology of strategy. If strategy is the discipline of victory, then we should first ask: What does it mean to win? Do not dismiss this as a trivial question. Working with organisations across different industries, I have come to realise just how profound (and challenging) that question can become.