You learn strategy by doing strategy

There is no other way, sorry. And yes, I read a lot about strategy – classics (Sun Tzu and Clausewitz), philosophers (Confucius, Plato), military strategists (Colin Gray, Freedman) and, of course, business (Porter, Hamel, Martin) – but all of these become a distant intellectual waste of time if you don’t apply them to some contexts.

It is usually the case that you have to lead strategic sessions within your organisation. You are an executive, a business owner, or a manager at any level, and you are going to participate in such exercises throughout your corporate life. Then you find plenty of opportunities to compare theory and practice and develop your own mastery.

But you can also increase your experience in strategising outside business: volunteering, politics, investments, sports and, especially, your personal life.

In my case, volunteering has been important for the last 20 years of my life. Mostly educational and cultural projects, but also some social actions. What is a challenge in this space is leadership and motivation – no one is there for a salary or a career promotion, so you do not have the usual managerial mechanisms of compensation and/or control: it’s pure leadership, as I like to say. And it’s pure strategy too. Lack of resources, lack of time, lack of capabilities – and yet you must make things happen.

Politics is not a field in which I have much experience. However, I can see many people dedicating their efforts to elect a candidate or even to develop a party. All of this offers a serious environment for strategising. Constantly.

Financial markets are open to everybody, and you should have an investment strategy for your own portfolio. Whatever it is, depending on your profile, don’t give up the chance to live the struggle to understand and to choose – the first two phases of any strategic process. I mean, even though execution could be in the hands of someone else, like the fund manager or your bank, there is a very fun way to ‘learn strategy by doing’ with your personal finances.

Try to really understand what is going on with the companies whose shares you hold; the yield curve; capital flows across countries; commodity-price volatility, etc. Explore new opportunities along the way. Select new investments and/or invest more in what you already have. Analyse the risks. Feel the bet, the uncertainty, the anxiety.

Sports. Even better if you actually play – then your experience is literally ‘in the field’. Collective sports, I think, are more strategy-intensive, although you also need to strategise in tennis or running. And if you are less athletic, at least you can try to understand and imagine hypotheses while watching from the sofa.

Human relations and your entire personal life probably offer the biggest challenges. Dealing with the people around you (family, relatives, friends, neighbours…) is a constant challenge, and getting through life together without conflict seems to be almost impossible. Nevertheless, conflict is part of strategic thinking, and I guess every one of us could practise strategy a lot throughout our lives simply by trying to harmonise relationships.

So, don’t tell me there aren’t so many possibilities to strategise. They are all around you, throughout your life. We learn strategy by doing strategy. And you can develop yourself as a strategist to live life strategically.