The purpose of this post is to clearly delineate the distinct differences between strategy and tactics, and show how they work in tandem for your organization.
Often, we use the terms strategy and tactics interchangeably and in a haphazard manner. When probing at online definitions and dictionaries, they often share many of the same characteristics, making them difficult to differentiate. Rather than debate Greek military etymology, Sun Tzu philosophy, or latest publications from the Harvard Business Press, here’s a simple way to look at strategy and tactics by their associated actions:
[The difference between strategy and tactics: strategy is done above the shoulders, tactics are done below the shoulders]
While a tweet-worthy catch phrase, this metaphor risks glib over-simplification. To explore deeper, let’s dissect strategy vs tactics in the following breakdown:
| Strategy | Tactics | |
| Purpose | To identify clear broader goals that advance the overall organization and organize resources. | To utilize specific resources to achieve sub-goals that support the defined mission. |
| Roles | Individuals who influence resources in the organization. They understand how a set of tactics work together to achieve goals. | Specific domain experts that maneuver limited resources into actions to achieve a set of goals. |
| Accountability | Held accountable to overall health of organization. | Held accountable to specific resources assigned. |
| Scope | All the resources within the organizations, as well as broader market conditions including competitors, customers, and economy. Yet don’t over think it, to paraphrase my business partner Charlene Li, “Strategy is often what you don’t do”. | A subset of resources used in a plan or process. Tactics are often specific tactics with limited resources to achieve broader goals. |
| Duration | Long Term, changes infrequently. | Shorter Term, flexible to specific market conditions. |
| Methods | Uses experience, research, analysis, thinking, then communication. | Uses experiences, best practices, plans, processes, and teams. |
| Outputs | Produces clear organizational goals, plans, maps, guideposts, and key performance measurements. | Produces clear deliverables and outputs using people, tools, time. |
Strategy and Tactics Must Work in Tandem
These two must work in tandem, without it your organization cannot efficiently achieve goals. If you have strategy without tactics you have big thinkers and no action. If you have tactics without strategy, you have disorder. To quote my former business partner, Lora Cecere, she reminds me that organizations need big wings (strategic thinking) and feet (capability to achieve).
Examples:
To illustrate, here’s some specific examples across different industries of how strategic goals can be communicated with clear tactical elements, in a linear and logical order:
- Strategy: Be the market share leader in terms of sales in the mid-market in our industry. Tactics: Offer lower cost solutions than enterprise competitors without sacrificing white-glove service for first 3 years of customer contracts.
- Strategy: Maneuver our brand into top two consideration set of household decision makers. Tactics: Deploy a marketing campaign that leverages existing customer reviews and spurs them to conduct word of mouth with their peers in online and real world events.
- Strategy: Improve retention of top 10% of company performers. Tactics: Offer best in market compensation plan with benefits as well as sabbaticals to tenured top performers, source ideas from top talent.
- Strategy: Connect with customers while in our store and increase sales. Tactics: Offer location based mobile apps on top three platforms, and provide top 5 needed use cases based on customer desire and usage patterns.
- Strategy: Become a social utility that earth uses on an daily basis. Tactics: Offer a free global communication toolset that enables disparate personal interactions with your friends to monitor, share, and interact with.
Action: Using Strategy and Tactics to advance your Organization
First, educate your staff and colleagues on the differences of terms and how they vary. Next, ensure that all tactics align to business strategy, and all strategies take into account tactics on how they will be achieved. Finally, cascade in all communication how strategy and tactics work in tandem, advancing how your organization can see the larger goals, and better utilize resources to achieve.
That’s my take, but please expand the conversation with your perspective, in the comments below.
Image credit: “Telescope” by Kristin Marshall, used within creative commons licensing.
Really useful and effective post.
Regarding this subject I’m used to associate a simple metaphore: in one ship trip the strategy consists in tracking on the map the route to follow to reach a destination; the tactic is in the actions that the crew takes to steer the ship keeping it in route.
I was expecting to read about marketing strategy vs marketing tactics. But this has a much broader definition! Useful post but I’d love to read one which is more ‘thematically relevant’ to internet marketing as a whole. That might be a bit of a minefield, though 🙂
Really useful post — surprises me that I still see confusion about this at agencies and corp. I do agree with earlier comment that Mission and Vision really are higher than at the strategy level, but should be woven into the spirit of strategy formulation. Also worth noting is the importance of clearly understanding business objectives, as strategies should be tied to meeting those (then you have a solid strategic platform). Thanks for laying this out so clearly.
Excellent description of the two.
Sorry – sailing involves tacking, not tacting. They have nothing to do with each other. Tactics and tact have nothing to do with each other either. http://grammarist.com/usage/tack-tack/
I think many people sub-conciously think they work with strategy even though they don’t.
Why do they do that?
Because they want to feel important. They want to feel that their thinking and actions matter.
I agree – seem to be outcomes/objectives
Nice article but what you’re describing in your examples aren’t strategies, they’re goals or objectives.
You said, “Strategy: Be the market share leader in terms of sales in the mid-market in our industry.”
What makes that a strategy? To me, that’s an objective.
No?
Thats a very simple, yet effective, way of breaking down the differences.
Question answered in comments below 🙂
thanks for the nice and simple illustration…..makes a lot of sense.
Very well said.i like it.
Very sensible.
Um, I get it,
The way I was told to remember it…
Strategy is when you decide to grab someone by the B@lls.
Tactics is how you squeeze them”
Yes we should keep it simple the difference between strategy and tactics. From my experience strategy can be running longer duration and implemented with one or several tactics. Maybe should refer to Sun Tzu on what is his opinion, would be interesting??
It’s simple… Strategy is the plan, tactics are the tools. This applies to business, chess, war, relationships, etc.
Strategy = general plan conceived for achieving one™s mission/goal?
Tactic = specific moves one makes or specific steps one takes (by keeping the mission in mind and by following the strategic plan)?
Thanks, every one suggested own views regarding the topic but it has been revealed more broader way.
Any way, I tried to find out more focussed on marketing strategy and tactic in the net,
In my workplace, I have found marketing strategy as customer segs>>focussed market>>position our organizational goal set with value addition which stimulates long term planing,
where as tactic is usually used for shorter times cutomizing the focussed market needs as well as buying capability, so price is fixed in a more competitive way, where prod and service develoment is done and moved from sourcing to distributing area with communicating the sales workforce and marketing promo, and advertisement.
Tilaak Goswami
To me, it’s all much simpler than the descriptions above. Strategy is the “WHAT,” as in what do you want to achieve? Tactics are the “HOW,” as in the steps, the approach you take to accomplish the strategy.
An individual/organisation has a goal and purpose
Why does it exist?
A goal/vision/ grand strategy is not equal to a strategy which in turn is not equal to a tactic which is not equal to project management.
Strategic planning: set a strategic goal and strategies to achieve it. Simply put, what do we/I (an organisation/individual) want to do and how are we going to do it.
Planning tools:
(a or b) understand the current situation in detail
(b or a) nominate the desired overall goal
(c) choose ways to achieve it
Only then can
(d) management processes allocate resources to implement those strategies and monitor progress towards goal (project management, tactics).
Go/no-go analysis: used to determine whether to proceed or continue.
Consider and assess all aspects:
profit/costs, ˜fun™, possible effect on reputation and strategic fit (does it fit with the goal? If a soccer club want to win a netball competition then that would not be a good strategic fit, they would be better to form a netball club.)
Examples:
Goal: gain market share
Strategy: brand building
Tactics: advertising, celebrity endorsements, etc.
Goal: have a more happy life
Sub-goal/strategy: lead a balanced life of meditation and right activity
Tactic for meditation: keep the attention at the point between the eyebrows
Strategies for right activity: take some time every day to interiorize the attention, eat healthily, serve others, get exercise, be prosperous (fulfilling remunerative work), study good books, etc.
Tactics for right activity, e.g. for a healthy diet (I won’t list for every strategy): eat fruits, vegetables, nuts (chew thoroughly), wholegrains and dairy.
Actually, unless you are in a management role, what your boss is doing is tactics, and what you’re doing is execution.
– Strategy is long-term, conceptual, and includes how the organization will interact with the outside world (C-level thinking)
– Tactics are short- to mid-term, and bridge the gap for how execution (individual actions taken/tasks completed) will add together for a larger effect to happen. It’s resource management, or middle-management.
– Execution is the actual doing of the thing. The people who do things are executors, not tacticians.
Layered into the discussion are objectives.
The order would be
Objective – Increase customer retention
Strategy – Increase retention of the top 10% of customers
Tactics – Offer customer loyalty rewards to the top ten percent of customers.
In this example you can see that Strategies are measurable while the Objectives are note.
What muddies the waters is that many people insist that objectives be measurable which leaves no place for more granular strategies that expand on the objective. You would just have measurable objectives and tactics.
Nice one. My two cents:
1) Business metrics: Drivers as defined by the business. A time-bound objective for the corporate/start up.
2) Strategy: Roadmap to achieve the metric
3) Tactic: Building block milestones that clubbed together, will fulfill strategy
4) Execute: Implementation
My via view point is organization/management will set the goal and direction. In each level even to the ground level it must have strategy and tactic to achieve the goal. Strategy is multiple concept and ideas to get to the goal where tactics will be the execution of each strategy.
The post has been ever so helpful in differentiating both strategy versus tactics. Blogs as well are helpful in that it also discusses both… Thank you so much for sharing, this will help me with my online classes…
Thank you for the article. In the examples section most of what you have termed strategy, are goals – are they not? Strategy requires a clear next action specified (which is not a tactic). Ultimately how this actually translates in real-time on the field is tactics.
” Tactics are often specific tactics with limited resources to achieve broader goals” – I’m sorry but your explanation seems to me as confused as the above line .
Strategy – win the chess game. Tactics – Rook to Queen Bishop 4. Execution – take your hand and move the chess piece.
Sounds like a dick of a boss.
This seems to confuse strategy v tactics with goals v objectives.
Surely, a strategy includes a top-level plan to reach the top-level goal(s)?
I have a simple trick, the what-how test, for distinguishing and identifying statements that are either strategic or tactical in nature. Strategy is about the ‘what’ piece; whereas, tactical is about ‘how’ one obtains the ‘what’. Of course you may come across some strange applications of strategy. 🙂
The strategy tells the Tactic what to do, and the tactic figures out a way to help the strategy.
The Tactics only purpose in life is to serve the strategy.
That depends on their relationship. I appreciate ‘No BS’ responses.
Was your boss Master? were you blaster? Would that make me max
Goal: is the destination… Strategy: is the way to reach destination… Tactic: is how you pass the way.. by car, motorcycle, etc..
(Simplification) Tactics are the tools used to build a stategy.
For an easier comprehension, tactics is the short term plan,for now; while strategy is thelong term plan. Short term plan and the long term plan is said in other words as tactics and strategy.
Great article and discussions/comments. Strategy, Tactics, Goal.. etc.. For me in the end as long as you love you work, you know what you are doing, you’ll be in the right path and in the future you will come up with a good strategy and tactics and you can see your goals clearly as distilled water.
Strategy=direction. Tactics=the vehicle They both rely and need one another to form success!!!!!
+1. Goal is the end state. Strategy is the what to get to that end state. Tactics are how to make the what happen.
Very helpful…but your link takes me to a website still under construction! When can we expect it up and running??
I’ve been using a rather simple distinction between the two, in terms mostly applicable to warfare/games: Tactics is to win the battle. Strategy is to (lose the battle but) win the war.
good piece there.i have a question,how can we define strategic and tactical bottlenecks to development especially in developing countries.
Thank you so much for clearly explaining difference between goal, strategy and tactic.