Often in business, we get caught working without an intentional strategy. 

Though there are many causes, it is important to understand that you are always operating with a strategy, it’s just that without intention, that path will yield uncontrollable results.

Believe me, I have heard the pushback many times over: “But Josh, creating a strategy is hard. It’s such a vague task.”

That’s right, and it’s wrong. People make strategy more complex than it needs to be, but that is not a great excuse for not being intentional. In the end, it’s important to articulate a strategy in order to understand how to operate, and to define what you need in order to succeed. 

In retrospect, the greatest product and business strategies seem brilliant. Let’s lower the bar for ourselves – our goal is not to create the next Moneyball. At first, we just start. (Later, Michael Lewis will figure out how to tell our story.)  

Let’s start with an example

In the early 1900s, Henry Ford decided to double workers’ hourly pay to $5, and simultaneously shorten their workday to 8 hours. These seem like paltry benefits now, but they were groundbreaking at the time. Can you imagine the feedback from Ford’s CFO? Ford was working against the strategic thesis that improving workers’ work conditions would increase productivity and loyalty. 

Ford realized that they would win the market in part by having a happier, longer tenured workforce who could afford the product they were making. It’s a pretty easy bet to have made in retrospect.

What’s not going to change?

When forming a strategy, Jeff Bezos asks the question, “What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?” This is a great place to start. For Amazon’s customers, there is no doubt that even lower prices will be welcome change 10 years from now. Same with faster shipping.

Thinking back on the Ford example above, the question might be “will workers desire higher pay in 10 years?” Obviously, the answer to that is yes. 

For Netflix, a critical bet was made on customers preferring streaming over DVD rentals, and you can imagine that at some point someone said, “we made movie consumption easier by shipping DVDs to customers’ doors. Will consumers prefer even less friction in the future?” Of course they would. 

Ideally, you are starting from a place of ample user research and analytics so that you understand what your users desire, and what behaviors are here to stay.

Roger Martin’s Simple Strategy Framework

I like Roger Martin’s Strategic Framework best. At it’s core, Strategy breaks down to:

• What is our aspiration?
• Where we’ll play
• How we’ll win

Well articulated responses to those questions become the overarching guide for the success of a company and/or product. If you have great answers to those questions, it becomes easier to prioritize what work is important, and where to divest effort. And, perhaps most importantly, it leads to clarity around what capabilities and management systems are needed within the business.

This framework is powerful because it is simple to understand, and yields articulations of a strategy that are similarly simple to understand.

Complexity, bad. Simplicity, good.

Assessing Ford’s $5/hour strategy

Ford’s aspiration

Ford aimed to become a dominant automaker by achieving mass market adoption. To get there, they needed to build profitably build cars that were affordable to middle class families (including his own workers’ families).

Where they played: Mass Production for growing US markets

Mass production was necessary in order to unlock Ford’s ability to scale profitably in the urban and industrial markets in the US with a rising working class population.

How they won: Create a loyal, skilled workforce and earn a demand loop, simultaneously

Ford’s strategy was brilliant in retrospect because he realized that his workers were ultimately a subset of his desired customers. So, he turned up the wages, standardized working hours, and made sure cars were priced within reach of his workforce.

Keep it Simple

In the end, strategy doesn’t have to be over-engineered. Pull together your brain trust. Then, together, define a clear aspiration, think about where you want to play, and decide how you’ll win. Generate lots of ideas along the way.

Keep it simple, grounded, and focused on what won’t change. Whether you’re crafting the next groundbreaking move or simply charting a course forward, remember: the brilliance of strategy often lies in its simplicity.