Common sense to strategy
Although I have been engaged in strategic planning and industry-related work for a period of time, I recently read the book "On Grand Strategy" by John Lewis Gaddis, an expert on grand strategy, and combined with work, I have some new understanding of strategy. .
I have always had a fixed understanding of strategy before: the choice under limited resources. At the same time, we have looked at strategy along the DSTE process and BLM model for many years. Before, we were on the extension line, facing a fixed market in a specific field, facing a relatively fixed opponent, starting from competition, starting from the market structure, and starting from the market goal. Driven to do strategic analysis, so more attention is paid to trade-offs.
There is no doubt that the choice is still the key and necessary, but recently discovered that when the industry is undergoing drastic changes, we may need to re-understand the focus of strategy, pay more attention to the opportunity cost, and analyze and understand ourselves.
First, respect common sense: the
beginning of the article talks about the Bossian War. Time travels to 480 BC, and you will see a very shocking scene. Xerxes I, the king of Persia, ascended to the throne on the cape and watched his army gather. According to the historian Herodotus, this is an army of more than 500,000 people, known as an army of one million. When he saw that half a million people were preparing for a decision, when Greece abandoned the city and made the sea the final battlefield, he unscrupulously ignored the fact that his troops could not fight at sea. , He thinks nothing can resist him. He was determined to go to war with Greece and chose the battlefield on his own short board and the opponent's long board. And the facts proved that the failure came as firm as his determination. The same story is that of Napoleon's defeat in Russia.
When Napoleon was an artillery commander, he knew how to judge the situation and was very flexible, so he fought many battles. In 10 years, Napoleon led an army to annex Italy, destroy the Holy Roman Empire, occupy Germany, and conquer Austria. With his brilliant achievements, he was on par with the great Alexander and Caesar. The brilliant record made him stand on the high point of history and ignore everything. The most important thing is what he and his army will face when the war supplies cannot keep up in the severe cold of Moscow.
The book reveals a question that has puzzled me for a long time, why many decision-making operations in large companies seem to violate common sense. Corporate executives like Nokia's Elop mostly started from the grassroots level, "fighting in the army", but why do the instructions to subordinates and the team go against common sense, or often appear to be quick and quick. The book says: "Common sense is like air: the higher you go, the thinner it becomes." We have deeply understood that we cannot think in accordance with the extension line. "The successful experience in the past is not a guide to future success." But everyone All have a path to success, and relying on experience and fixed rules is still something that goes deep into our genes. Therefore, in top-down decision-making while obtaining bottom-up feedback, it is more important to rely on open organizations, neighboring partners and industries, and open innovation to verify and execute strategic decisions.
Second, make a balance between goals and capabilities:
The target is a distant harbor, and the ability is a sailing ship. The strategy is to constantly adjust the speed and direction of the ship according to the wind, waves and tides so that it can finally reach the harbor. A good strategy maker always has two kinds of endowments: first, every step he steps on is very specific; second, he changes steps quickly and timely.
This is very applicable to us at present. We have accumulated a large number of experts, products and experience in the field of CT for a long time, but when we are moving into the field of IT and computing, we are accustomed to taking the benchmark of our competitors to analyze. There is no doubt that Intel, Nvidia , Even Red Hat is the object of our study. Can you switch to Intel mode now, or even RedHat mode on open source? Why can't we do it in one step? This is where I am most confused.
Based on recent practice, it must be combined with our own resource endowments and organizational reality, cognitive reality and ability reality to base ourselves in the present, steadily advancing, and succumb to each other rather than swiftly.
Therefore, for our team and colleagues who are engaged in the development of the open source industry in a mature business organization, the biggest strategy at present is change, which is to constantly adjust our steps and strategies in accordance with the results of each stage. There is a church in my heart, but every step is It is necessary to maintain flexibility at all times, through continuous actual combat to improve the team's open source management and operational capabilities, enhance technical architecture capabilities, enhance business understanding, and constantly coordinate and balance capabilities and goals to achieve the best state of progress and feasible. Bypass all kinds of swamps, deserts, canyons and mountains on the way forward, and finally reach the destination.