計畫不是策略
Summary
TLDRThis video distinguishes between strategy and planning, explaining that while planning focuses on activities within a company's control, strategy involves making integrated choices to win in a competitive field. Many businesses mistakenly combine the two into 'strategic planning,' but real strategy requires a coherent, outcome-driven approach that involves risk and uncertainty. The speaker uses Southwest Airlines as an example of effective strategy, emphasizing that strategy is about positioning to win, not just participating. To succeed, companies must embrace uncertainty, continuously refine their strategy, and stay focused on competitive outcomes.
Takeaways
- 📝 Strategic planning and strategy are often confused, but they are not the same.
- 🎯 Strategy is a coherent set of choices aimed at positioning a company to win in a competitive environment.
- 🔍 Planning is often about resource allocation, like building factories or hiring people, but it lacks the coherence of a strategy.
- 🏆 A strategy specifies a competitive outcome, focusing on how a company will win in the marketplace, unlike planning, which focuses on controllable costs.
- 💡 Strategy requires a theory of how the company will outperform competitors and deliver value to customers.
- 📊 A plan can make a company feel comfortable, but comfort does not lead to winning in the long run.
- ✈️ The example of Southwest Airlines shows how a clear strategy can outpace competitors who are focused only on planning.
- 🧠 Strategy involves risk and uncertainty, as it cannot be proven in advance, unlike a plan that lists actionable items.
- 🔄 Strategy should be flexible, with leaders continuously monitoring and adjusting based on how the market and competition evolve.
- 📄 A good strategy should be simple, clear, and able to fit on a single page, with defined goals, capabilities, and management systems.
Q & A
What is the main difference between planning and strategy, according to the script?
-Planning involves setting out specific actions or activities a company will engage in, whereas strategy is an integrated set of choices that positions a company to win on a chosen playing field. Planning focuses on tasks, while strategy focuses on achieving competitive outcomes.
Why does the script suggest that 'strategic planning' is often misunderstood?
-The script suggests that 'strategic planning' is misunderstood because most so-called strategic plans are actually just lists of activities or goals without a coherent strategy. These plans lack a theory of how to position the company to win in the market.
What does the script define as a strategy?
-A strategy is defined as a coherent set of choices that positions a company on a playing field of its choice in a way that allows it to win. It includes a theory of why the company should be on a particular field and how it will outperform competitors.
What is the problem with focusing only on planning without a strategy?
-The problem with focusing only on planning is that while it might outline various activities a company will do, it lacks the coherence and competitive focus that a strategy provides. As a result, the planned activities might not lead to success or competitive advantage.
How does the script illustrate the difference between planning and strategy using airlines?
-The script contrasts the planning of major US airlines with Southwest Airlines' strategy. While the major carriers focused on planning their routes and expansions, Southwest had a strategy aimed at winning by offering lower costs and more convenience, which allowed them to grow rapidly and capture market share.
What is one of the key challenges of creating a strategy, as mentioned in the script?
-One key challenge of creating a strategy is dealing with uncertainty. A strategy aims for an outcome that relies on customer behavior, which the company cannot control. Managers must accept the risk and uncertainty associated with strategy, unlike the predictability of planning.
Why is planning described as more comfortable than strategy?
-Planning is described as more comfortable because it deals with internal decisions the company controls, such as how much to spend on a factory or how many people to hire. Strategy, on the other hand, requires taking risks on external factors like customer preferences, which the company cannot control.
What advice does the script give for developing a strong strategy?
-The script advises laying out the logic of the strategy clearly, specifying what needs to be true for it to succeed, and being prepared to adjust the strategy as the market and conditions evolve. This allows for flexibility and continuous improvement of the strategy.
How does the script suggest companies should approach strategy refinement?
-The script suggests that strategy should be treated as a journey. As a company watches the market and observes what works and what doesn’t, it should tweak and refine the strategy, making improvements based on real-world results.
What example does the script use to show the importance of having a clear strategy?
-The script uses Southwest Airlines as an example. While other airlines were focused on planning activities, Southwest had a clear strategy that allowed it to offer lower costs and greater convenience, positioning it as a winner in its market segment.
Outlines
🤔 The Difference Between Planning and Strategy
The speaker distinguishes between planning and strategy, explaining that while planning has been around for a long time, it's not the same as strategy. Strategic planning often combines the two but misses the essence of true strategy. Most business strategies are actually plans—a set of actions without a coherent theory of how to win in the market. A proper strategy, however, is an integrated set of choices positioning a company on a specific playing field to succeed. It requires a clear, coherent theory and actions, unlike planning, which focuses on resource allocation without a strategic direction.
✈️ Southwest Airlines’ Winning Strategy
Southwest Airlines is highlighted as an example of successful strategy execution. Instead of following the traditional hub-and-spoke model of other airlines, Southwest focused on point-to-point travel, using only one type of aircraft (Boeing 737) to simplify operations. They chose not to offer meals and encouraged online bookings, all of which reduced costs. As a result, they could offer lower prices than competitors. While major airlines focused on expanding their fleets or securing more gates, Southwest focused on winning by targeting a specific segment, growing rapidly, and eventually dominating the U.S. air travel market.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Planning
💡Strategy
💡Strategic Planning
💡Coherent Theory
💡Competitive Outcome
💡Customer Focus
💡Hub and Spoke vs. Point to Point
💡Cost Control
💡Comfort Trap
💡Winning Strategy
Highlights
Planning and strategy are often mistakenly conflated, but they are fundamentally different.
Strategy is an integrated set of choices that positions a company on a playing field of its choice to win.
Strategy requires a coherent theory about why a company should play on a particular field and how it will be better than its competitors.
Strategic planning in many companies is a list of activities, not an actual strategy.
Planning often focuses on controllable costs and resources like building factories or hiring staff, but lacks the competitive outcome focus of strategy.
A strategy specifies an outcome, such as achieving customer preference over competitors, which is harder because it involves factors outside direct control.
Planning is comforting because it deals with predictable, controllable resources, while strategy involves uncertainty and risk.
Southwest Airlines succeeded by having a clear, coherent strategy—lower costs through flying point-to-point, using one aircraft type, and avoiding extras like meals.
While competitors were busy planning, Southwest had a winning strategy that allowed it to grow and dominate.
Most competitors were 'playing to participate' rather than 'playing to win,' focusing on incremental gains instead of competitive positioning.
Strategy involves making decisions based on what must be true for a company's theory to work, and adapting when those conditions don't play out.
Good strategy involves acknowledging that you can't guarantee success but understanding the risks and making bold choices.
Companies must focus on laying out the logic behind their strategy to allow for adjustments as conditions change.
A successful strategy should be simple enough to be written on a single page and regularly reviewed and refined.
Planning without a coherent strategy is a way to guarantee losing; strategy provides the best possible chance of winning.
Transcripts
this thing called planning has been
around for a long long time people would
plan out the activities they're going to
engage in more recently has been a
discipline called strategy people have
put those two things together to call
something strategic planning
unfortunately those things are not the
same strategy and planning so just
putting them together in callate
strategic planning doesn't help what
most strategic planning is in the world
of of business uh has nothing to do with
strategy it's got the word but it's not
it's a set of
activities that the company says it's
going to do we're going to improve
customer experience we're going to open
this new plant we are going to start a
new talent development program a whole
list of them and they all they all sound
good but the results of all of those are
not going to make the company happy
because they didn't have a strategy
[Music]
so what's a strategy a strategy is an
integr set of choices that positions you
on a playing field of your choice in a
way that you win so there's a theory
strategy has a theory here's why we
should be on this playing field not this
other one and here's how on that playing
field we're going to be better than
anybody else at serving the customers on
that playing field that theory has to be
coherent it has to be doable you have to
be able to translate that into actions
for it to be a great strategy
planning does not have to have any such
coherence and it typically is what
people in manufacturing want the few
things they want to build a new plant
and the marketing people want to launch
a new brand and the talent people want
to hire more people that tends to be a
list that has no internal coherence to
it
and no specification of a way that that
is going to accomplish collectively some
goal for the
company see planning is quite comforting
plans typically have to do with the
resources you're going to spend so we're
going to build a plant we're going to
hire some people we're going to launch a
new product those are all things that
are on the cost side of businesses who
controls your costs who's the customer
of your costs the answer is you are you
decide how many square feet to lease how
many uh raw materials to buy how many
people to hire those are more
comfortable because you control them a
strategy on the other hand specifies an
outcome a competitive outcome that you
wish to achieve which involves customers
wanting your product product or service
enough that they will buy enough of it
to make the profitability that you'd
like to uh make the tricky thing about
that is that you don't control them you
might wish you could but you can't they
decide not
you that's a harder trick so that means
putting yourself out and saying here's
what we believe will happen we can't
prove it in advance we can't guarantee
it but this is what we want to have
happened and and that we believe will
happen it's much easier to say I'll
build a factory I will hire more people
Etc then I will have customers end up
liking our offering more than those of
competitors the tricky thing about
planning is that while you're
planning chances are at least one
competitor is figuring out how to
win when US Air carriers were busily
planning you know what routs to fly and
da da da there was this little company
in Texas called Southwest that had a
strategy for
winning and you know at first that
looked largely irrelevant because it was
Tiny what Southwest Airlines was aiming
for was an outcome
what they wanted to be is a substitute
for
Greyhound a way more convenient way to
get around at a price that wasn't
extraordinarily much greater than a
greyhound uh bus Southwest said
everybody else is flying Hub and spoke
they have hubs and they fly Hub and
spoke we're going to fly point to point
so that we don't have aircraft waiting
on the ground because you only make
money when you're in the air we're going
to only fly
737s one kind of aircraft so that our
gates are set up for those our systems
are set up for those our training our
simulations are set up we're not going
to offer meals on on the flights because
we're going to specialize in in short
flights we're not going to book through
travel agents we're going to encourage
people to book online because that's
less expensive for everybody and more
convenient so their strategy ended up
being having a substantially lower cost
than any of the major carriers so that
they could offer substantially lower
prices because it had a way of winning
it got bigger and then bigger and then
bigger and then bigger and bigger and
bigger and bigger until it flies the
most passenger seat miles in
America the major
carriers um were not trying to win
against one another they were all
playing to play as I say they were
playing to participate maybe maybe maybe
buy more planes get more gates maybe
grow some not having a theory of here's
how we could be better than our
competitors and that was fine until
somebody came along and said here's a
way to be better than everybody else for
this segment uh and so that segment then
goes it's gone and the main playing
toplay players have to have to share a
smaller pie that's left over after
Southwest takes whatever share it
wants if you're trying to escape this
planning trap this Comfort trap of doing
something that's comfortable but not
good for you uh how do you
start the most important thing to
recognize is that strategy will have
angst associated with it it'll it'll
make you feel somewhat nervous because
as a man manager chances are you've been
taught you should do things that you can
prove in advance you can't prove in
advance that your strategy will succeed
you can look at a plan and say well all
of these things are doable let's just do
those because they're within our control
but they won't add up to much in
strategy you have to say if our theory
is right about what we can do and how
the market will react this will position
Us in an excellent way just accept the
fact that you can't be perfect on that
and you can't know for sure and that is
not being a bad manager right that is
being a great leader because you're
giving your organization the chance to
do something great the second thing I do
is is say lay out the logic of your
strategy uh clearly what would have to
be true about ourselves about the
industry about competition about
customers for this strategy to work why
do you do that it's because you can then
watch the world unfold right and if
something that you say is in the logic
that would have to be true for this to
work is not working out quite the way
you hoped it'll allow you to tweak your
strategy and strategy is a journey what
you want to have is a mechanism for
tweaking it toning it and refining it so
it gets better and better as you go
along another thing that helps with
strategy is not letting it get over
complicated it's great if you can write
your strategy on a single page here's
where we're choosing to play here's how
we're choosing to win here the
capabilities we need to have in place
here are the management systems and
that's why it's going to achieve this
goal this aspiration uh that we have
then you lay out the logic what must be
true for that all to work out the way uh
we hope go do it uh and watch and tweak
as as you go along that may feel
somewhat more worry making angst making
than planning but I would tell you that
if you plan that's a way to guarantee
losing if you do strategy it gives you
the best possible chance of
[Music]
winning
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