In Defense of Some "Dirty Words"

No, not the ones you can't say on T.V.

I shouldn't have been surprised, in these days when everything corporate is supposed to be "strategic", but it recently was brought to my attention that "tactics" and "tactical" are among the dirty words in the corporate lexicon.

I'd just written an article for internal distribution that referred to a cross-organizational team I described as "developing the strategies and tactics" associated with a particular corporate initiative. The relevant paragraph was rewritten by an executive to expunge all references to tactics. No one wanted to be associated with anything tactical.

I should have anticipated this. One of my more culturally attuned colleagues frequently referred to any project that he deemed beneath his talents as "tactical." "It's just so tactical" is a phrase I've heard more than once from him.

"Strategy" may be defined as the general scheme of the conduct of a war, "tactics" as the planning of means to achieve strategic objectives. In the end, the distinction is a matter of scale and timeframe. The general may consider his role strategic and the captain's tactical; but, from the captain's point of view, achieving all of his tactical goals certainly involves strategic thinking and activity. Similarly, the "strategic" general operates at a tactical level relative to the commander-in-chief. So, is the president the ultimate strategist? Anyone who has to contend with changing circumstances and shifting alliances at local, national, and global scales necessarily must think strategically and tactically--either in turn or simultaneously.

The distinction between strategy and tactics is not as clear as those who use the words would have you believe. It is a useful distinction, up to a point; but, like all types of binary thinking, it can be limited and limiting, particularly when we let ourselves believe it is more than a verbal convenience.

Why does this distinction matter to corporate communicators? Because--like everyone else in the corporate world--we are under pressure to work within the strategic/tactical dichotomy. Is your work strategic or tactical? Proactive or reactive? If we embrace one and eschew the other, we fall into a ditch. This is true for everyone in the corporate world, but particularly for us because we operate across our organizations, frequently within the gaps created by more clearly defined job descriptions.

More on this later...