A good friend was reflecting on goals and strategy.
Good strategy starts with “where do we play?” and then moves to “how do we win?”
Her reflection was that goals often led to missteps in the past because she skipped the “where do we play” question and jumped straight into “how do I win.”
It’s a nice and simple articulation of the challenge with goals – they get you hyper-focused on one pre-decided particular outcome which may not be the outcome you want at a later period of time.
Good strategy is always evolving based on the context.
I think a better approach is to pick directions and get the process right.
The direction evolves based on the answer to “where do we play.” It’s not a specific destination. It’s a direction.
And “how do we win” is your process – we simply spend our days focused on doing the right things.
And good outcomes follow good process.
A Learning a Day 