Vision, strategy, plan

Vision, strategy, tactic, plan, strategic plan, visionary leadership. There is so much terminology in the leadership space that it’s pretty easy to conclude that it’s all non-value producing BS and adopt a rather cynical mindset towards management.

Unfortunately, whenever more than two people are involved in solving a problem, leadership is a very much real thing. And so, today I’ll try to do my best to unpack it and show how leadership works structurally.

Vision, strategy, plan

Leadership can be a pretty murky business. It varies from an industry to an industry significantly, and to make matters even worse, most software engineering companies start essentially as snowflakes; as unique as their complement of founders.

Fortunately for us, people have done a fair bit of thinking on the subject. There are a lot of ways to look at the problem, but one of the common frameworks divides what leaders do into three main categories.

Vision -> Strategy -> Plan

Which, coincidentally, are probably the most confusing three words on the planet. So, let me unpack each of those in order.

The B-HAG

Vision is easier explained through another term called BHAG. Which stands for: “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”. I know, I know, explaining an unknown via another unknown, just stay with me here for a second.

A good vision is not some ephemeral abstract pipe dream. “World domination” is not a good vision. “Making a lot of money” is not a good vision either. That’s why vision is better to be defined as a goal or a destination.

The great thing about thinking of a vision as a goal is that a goal needs to have a clear definition of success. My goal right now for example is to write a decent management article. I want to see two screens worth of text that make a point and reads well. That’s my definition of success. And so, similarly, “become the biggest player in space X” is a decent vision, and so is “Make enough money to buy a house in Sydney”.

The vision also needs to be challenging, something you can’t just go and buy off the shelf. “Make a good cup of coffee” is not a BHAG, “Create the best coffee house within 30 minutes walking distance” is; well, at least to some people it is.

And finally, a good vision needs to be hairy. “Getting a six-pack” is difficult, but it’s not complicated, you just diet well and exercise, any average Joe with enough time on their hands can do that. “Getting a six-pack while raising 3 children and managing a chronic back pain” on the other hand is complicated. We want the vision to be hairy because complicated problems is what jells great teams together.

Big. Hairy. Audacious. Goal. B-HAG - that’s your vision

What is strategy?

In the most basic terms, a strategy is essentially a set of decision making rules that help a team to move towards the vision. For example:

Vision: Run an illegal cab company

Strategy:

• We need a great PR system to toot our horn and paint the regulated cabs industry as villains
• We target the most vulnerable groups of people as drives so we could skip on social benefits payouts and have great margins
• We funnel profits into buying off as many politicians as we can, especially in 2nd world countries

Vision: Run a low coster flight company

Strategy:

• Avoid major expensive air ports
• Avoid air plane maintenance costs
• Target the low income demographic who won’t complain about the quality of service

Apologies for a bit of poignant examples. Here is a better one:

Vision: Run a happy software engineering company

Strategy:

• Build useful stuff so that you could afford good engineers
• Treat people decently and always invest in their development
• Build an unquestionable EVP presence on the market
• Don’t use technology for evil

I hope this starts to make sense. A good strategy should be linked directly to the vision, and, it should not have specific details. Because a strategy is not a plan, a strategy is a decision making heuristic.

What is not a strategy

Before I jump into the plan part, I think it’s worth saying a few words about what is often considered a strategy, but really is not.

Operational efficiency is not a strategy. All too often strategy decks contain terms like “agile”, “reducing cycle time”, and such. All of those are great things to have. But, for any business that aims to build something useful operational efficiency should be a default setting.

The same goes for pretty much all other best practice items, such as: reliability, treating customers well, etc., etc. Those are not business differentiating items, everyone serious about their business does these.

Moreover items like those should flow directly out of a strategy. The reason being is that it is very easy to get lost in best practices and start applying them without moving any closer to the vision.

I know first hand how aggravating the term non-value adding activity can be when applied to a best practice; we all have the best intentions. But, if it doesn’t add value, it most likely burns resources that could be used for something else.

So, what’s with the plan?

A plan in this case means specific todo items based on the strategy that contribute to the vision. You can think of it this way.

A vision is a destination, it lives in the future and doesn’t exist yet. And a strategy is a set of rules to direct us towards that vision, it doesn’t have any specifics in it by the definition. And so there is a void between the now and the vision; a gap of uncertainty.

And so a plan is really a set of best guesses about what we can do now that can move us one step closer to realising the vision. And as such, what goes into the plan is roadmaps, hiring plans, budgets, skill and process gaps improvements, and such and such.

All plans are essentially about putting one foot in front of the other. And it’s critical to approach them this way. Because, while people on the team might buy into the vision, they’ll loose interest in it very quickly if they don’t see a progress. And in that light, iterative plans that demonstrate that progress on regular basis are the best ones to have.

How the structure evolves

There is a certain structure how the leadership elements are connected together, but it is a mistake to think that one irreversibly dictates the other. Information flows from the bottom up too. And that puts the whole structure in a flux, which is what we really want in the ever changing market conditions. Different parts change at different paces though.

Vision doesn’t normally change a whole lot. It gets rather refined and better defined as an organisation matures. But, sometimes the vision changes dramatically, and that is what we call “a pivot”. Like Slack for example, it started as a game development team but then pivoted to make, well, the slack app.

One needs a strongly coherent and well bonded team to pull off a pivot though. Because a pivot often comes with significant employee churn. Because people who joined earlier might not necessarily subscribe to a new vision.

Strategy is also a rather slow moving target. But, unlike vision which requires some dramatic impact to be changed, a strategy is normally goes through regular revisions; usually in the form of annual strategy reviews. A strategy depends as much on a vision as on the market conditions and the complexities of the organisation itself. As both of those change the strategy needs regular adjustments.

Plans is the fastest moving part of a leadership structure. As such, plans always need to be seen as temporary. All plans are only as as good as the underlying assumptions about the market. As an organisation interacts with the market, both of them change, and plans should be mercilessly changed along with that.

All together

Traditionally, on the organisation level, the structure would work like so:

1. The company board defines the vision
2. The senior leadership team comes up with a strategy to support it
3. Middle-management creates and executes plans based on the vision and the

But, the interesting thing is that leadership has a fractal nature. The structure and the principles repeat themselves on the smaller scopes over and over again. The product level, the project level, even the team and individual level.

Here is an example how a tech-lead could apply the same structure to lead their team of engineers.

Vision: We want to run a high-performing team that enjoys what it does

Strategy:

• Create great working conditions
• Build stuff that matters
• People and relationships are important

Plan:

• Elevate quality of work to avoid surprises and all-outs
• Manage people’s energy levels through realistic commitments
• Practice enablement and sharing of responsibilities
• Spend quality time together as a team

As you can see, it is exactly the same structure. As a team leader you create a shared vision for the team. Then together with the team you create a set of rules (a strategy). And then based on those you iterate on plans to get there.

We can apply this structure not just to lead down, but also to lead up. For example:

Vision: Great working relationships with my boss

Strategy:

• Always be clear about what do they actually want from you
• Transparent information flow both ways is critical
• Cultivating a personal relationship is important

Plan:

• Always ask clarifying questions, even when you think you understood everything
• Make sure there is an implicit and mutual agreement on your commitments
• Be diligent with paperwork and reporting, never BS your boss
• Never back down from what you need; keep asking until you get it
• Don’t forget to ask about their day, family, and struggles regularly
• Always deliver on your commitments

Wrapping up

I don’t know what else to add here. I hope the idea makes sense now, and you can apply it to your own circumstances. Always keep in mind the structure:

Vision -> Strategy -> Plan