Omniscience: The Strategist's Secret Weapon

What makes a good strategist? In other words is there any one distinguishing attribute that defines a good strategist? As a student of strategic management, I have reflected along similar lines at length. If I have to associate one attribute with the ideal strategist, a quality expressed in the most superlative terms, it would have to be omniscience. The ideal strategist would be omniscient. But that would limit the set of ideal strategists to Gods- for who else can claim to be omniscient. However, even in an imperfect form, an understanding of as diverse a set of bodies of knowledge as possible would probably be the most important prerequisite for effective strategizing, especially from a management perspective.

From a business perspective a good strategist should be able to analyze a company’s financial ratios, understand the customer’s perspective, visualize the HR connotations of a decision to lay off workers-essentially have a reasonably good understanding of all functional areas of business. So, do all B-School grads make good strategists? After all, all of them can analyze financial ratios or understand the customer’s perspective. It is not merely an understanding of Finance or Marketing or HR that is important, it is the depth of understanding of these disparate functional areas that matters. Strategic decisions have serious long-term business implications for an organization. Thus, making an informed decision is vital. A strategist’s depth of understanding of all functional areas is important for him to correctly assess the outcome of any planned course of action.

Consider an FMCG firm that is considering the acquisition of a smaller firm in the same industry. Before taking this course of action, the large firm has to consider a range of issues. What value does the acquisition of the target firm add to the larger firm? Does it fill a gap in one of the FMCG major’s product line? How is the brand that the target firm represents perceived by the customers? How best to integrate the employees of the target firm into the larger firm? Should the FMCG major offer an all cash deal to the shareholders of the smaller firm or a combination of stock and cash? The range of issues can be endless but the situation highlights the disparate functional areas involved in making a decision. And the importance of the course of action to the company calls for a reasonable depth of understanding.

So, in order to become a good strategist one needs both breadth and depth of knowledge, in other words one has to tend towards the omniscient ideal. But short-cut loving B-School students needn’t be alarmed. Remember, execution eats strategy for breakfast. So, if you can’t strategize, learn to eat it with buttered toast and a glass of milk.