0:04 Anyone who believes in indefinite growth
0:07 on a physically finite planet is either
0:10 mad or an economist. We don't want to
0:12 focus politics on a notion that involves
0:14 the rejection of principles around which
0:16 a large majority of our fellow citizens
0:19 or organize their lives. We are not as
0:21 endlessly manipulable and as predictable
0:28 Strategy. The word itself goes back to
0:30 the Greek strategist, the art of the
0:32 general. It hadn't really been used, at
0:34 least in the Western world, until the
0:37 end of the 18th century, partly because
0:40 of the enlightenment and an interest in
0:43 how to describe ideas and practice that
0:46 would allow you to uh show that reason
0:48 can be important even in that most
0:50 unruly of human affairs, war. It came
0:52 into being but then I think was given a
0:55 tremendous push by by Napoleon by the
0:57 Napoleonic wars and the sense something
0:59 big and and different was going on and
1:02 this military genius Napoleon seemed to
1:04 understand it better than anybody else
1:06 and that needed to be explained in the
1:09 principles behind that could give you a
1:13 clue uh as to how uh future military
1:14 campaigns should be organized. There
1:17 were laws, there were principles at work
1:21 uh that guided strategy. Not long after
1:24 um this Napoleonic period, professional
1:27 revolutionaries who came into being in the
1:29 the
1:31 1830s looked back at some of these
1:33 ideas, read the literature that had
1:36 gener been generated around Napoleonic
1:39 strategy and started to try to apply it
1:42 to revolutionary strategy. So you have
1:45 another strand that comes in from about
1:48 that period and those of you who are
1:51 familiar with um radical politics know a
1:53 lot of the arguments that were set in
1:55 motion uh at that period haven't
1:58 stopped. And then you have the the third
2:01 wave which comes in much later when
2:05 really not until the early 1960s do you
2:09 find business leaders um and those
2:12 writing for them starting to talk about
2:15 the need for a strategy. And actually at
2:16 that point the
2:19 literature on strategy takes off.
2:21 There's a sort of exponential curve of
2:24 books on strategy. And then of course
2:28 this then moves into all aspects of
2:31 life. There's no human activity, however
2:33 intimate now, that doesn't seem to need
2:36 a strategy of some sort. So that you can
2:38 have child rearing strategies,
2:41 strategies uh for finding partners,
2:43 strategies for your tax returns. And one
2:46 of the interesting questions for me is
2:48 is how do you put bounds on that? How do
2:52 you describe strategic activity in a way
2:55 that it's not just a simple way of
2:58 talking about thinking far ahead or
3:01 working out what I need to do next? Do
3:04 you dignify every deliberation as a
3:08 strategy? Each of these aspects bring in
3:10 some aspect of my life. Most of my
3:14 working life has been spent on uh
3:16 military issues. Um I started on on
3:19 nuclear strategy which is in some ways
3:21 the the hardest strategic discussion of
3:23 all. Uh but before that as an
3:25 undergraduate and even as little bit as
3:28 a graduate I I was very engaged in the
3:31 radical political debates of the late
3:34 1960s when these issues seemed terribly
3:36 important. And being a pragmatic sort of
3:38 chap, I worried
3:41 continuously about how it could ever be
3:43 that these wonderful ideas that my
3:45 colleagues were espousing and went to
3:47 the streets to demonstrate about could
3:51 ever be turned into practice and then as
3:53 happens in a life uh I end up as part of
3:56 senior management in a university um and
3:58 ending up with strategy in my title. So
4:01 actually as a matter of practice have
4:03 had to try to work out how an organization
4:05 organization
4:08 uh develops a strategy and in all of
4:11 these different areas skepticism about
4:14 what strategy could do for you had crept
4:16 in quite quickly with the with the on
4:19 the revolutionary side uh but perhaps
4:22 more gradually on the other side. In
4:25 each of the areas I've described, the
4:28 surge of interest in strategy reflected
4:32 a belief that somehow this was a way by
4:36 which bright, intelligent, well-informed
4:40 leaders could control events. how they
4:43 could face all sorts of challenges and
4:46 adversity and come out on top because
4:48 somehow these unders these people
4:50 understood what needed to be done, what
4:53 could be done better than others. I
4:56 mentioned already the Napoleonic
5:01 um strategies. uh the first great
5:03 interpreter of strategy, not Clausivit
5:05 who came a little afterwards but
5:07 Germany, the Swiss Germany who was with
5:09 the French never really throughout a
5:13 very long life moved away from the view
5:15 that if the certain principles were
5:19 followed then the clever general the
5:22 general of genius could get to the
5:24 decisive victory which would win the
5:27 war. It was a theory of battle and and
5:29 decisive battles, but it was based on
5:33 optimism uh that an enemy could be
5:36 defeated and once the enemy was defeated
5:39 then uh the state the enemy state could
5:40 be subjugated.
5:44 Clausvitz who was uh probably still the
5:47 the greatest theorist of war was a
5:49 little bit more skeptical but still he
5:52 too was taken by this idea of the
5:55 possibility of the decisive battle and
5:58 you can see this idea not uh withering
6:01 during the 19th century but getting more
6:04 and more of a hold as particularly the
6:07 Prussian general staff who were towards
6:09 the end of the century more and more
6:12 successful ful could not really think in
6:15 any other terms but how they would win
6:18 the war quickly because they knew a long
6:20 war would be to their disadvantage by
6:23 having a clever strategic
6:26 plan. Yet by this time by the end of the
6:29 19th century all the reasons why we know
6:33 it is difficult for a clever strategic
6:36 plan always to succeed had become
6:39 apparent. They'd become apparent even uh
6:41 by the time of the fall of Napoleon.
6:43 They'd become apparent in the in the
6:47 peninsula campaign as uh militias
6:50 appeared which kept on interrupting the
6:53 work of of the French armies in in Spain
6:55 and eventually were with Wellington to
6:57 have their defeat there. They were very
6:59 evident in the Boradino campaign about
7:02 which Toltoy wrote not wholly accurately
7:05 but it's noteworthy that tool to Toltoy
7:08 used Boradino uh as essentially to
7:10 challenge the whole idea of the
7:12 possibility of strategy. Claus of
7:15 appears in in war and peace in a not
7:18 wholly flattering light. Um and there's
7:20 great skepticism about these German
7:23 ideas of a science of strategy uh as to
7:26 what they could achieve. Boredino
7:29 demonstrated um the problems uh that
7:32 Napoleon faced first with not fight not
7:34 fighting when he wanted to fight, having
7:36 to go right into Russia to meet the
7:38 Russian army, defeating the Russian
7:41 army, but not sufficiently for it to
7:43 have to plead for mercy. The Russian
7:45 army could fight another day. And then
7:48 he goes to Moscow, the capital city, the
7:50 the symbol o of of the state. he can
7:52 take Moscow but he can't stay there
7:54 because it's on fire and the population
7:56 has left so he has to go home and we
7:59 know what happened and then during the
8:01 course of the 19th century um you have
8:05 the example uh of the um American civil
8:08 war which demonstrates how these things
8:10 can turn into quite bloody battles of
8:12 attrition even before the first world
8:15 war which undermined forever the
8:18 possibility or the or confidence that
8:20 with the right strategy uh you could be
8:24 sure of victory right up to this period
8:26 but and to some extent beyond this idea
8:28 of the possibility of understanding
8:30 strategy would allow you to control
8:33 events and not get yourself into mess uh
8:34 still h had a hold and you may have seen
8:38 even recently um uh in in the press uh
8:41 indeed one of my colleagues Oxford
8:43 University Hugh Stro has been arguing
8:45 the problem is is a lack of strategic
8:46 thinking if only we had better
8:48 strategies Iraq and Afghanistan wouldn't
8:50 have happened the way they did But you
8:52 know, one can question whether the
8:55 strategy was at fault uh or whether
8:59 actually the strategies themselves um
9:01 were always going to be difficult to
9:03 implement. Uh with revolutionary
9:06 strategy again there was a an optimism
9:09 that you can see in Markx uh and and his
9:11 followers about what the masses were
9:13 going to be able to do. the
9:16 inevitability of their growing strength
9:18 uh and seriousness of purpose, the
9:21 polarization that was going to come and
9:23 the question was what was going to be
9:26 the role uh of of the intellectuals and
9:28 the professional revolutionaries when
9:30 the moment came. The revolution was the
9:33 equivalent of the decisive battle. It
9:35 was going to be the same stunning moment
9:37 when you have a transformation from one
9:40 order to another.
9:41 Everything was going to be different
9:43 after the revolution, come the
9:47 revolution. But uh again, the experience
9:48 eventually told that there were other
9:51 ways by which the masses might try to
9:55 meet their objectives. Um the
9:58 reformists, the social democrats uh saw
10:01 the virtues of elections, lost interest
10:03 in revolutions lest they appear too
10:06 dangerous. Again, the first world war uh
10:09 undermined the whole notion of a of a
10:12 class interest superseding a national
10:14 interest when all the socialist parties
10:16 of the second international went back
10:20 and supported their own nations at war.
10:22 And then with business strategy too, a
10:25 lot of the original business strategy
10:29 was based actually on the needs of the
10:31 big American corporations in particular
10:35 General Motors. It was about how these
10:36 big corporations which had almost
10:39 reached the limits of their market share
10:43 because of antitrust legislation
10:46 uh how do they continue to be profitable
10:49 and it was pushed strategic thinking
10:51 inwards. It was about the organization
10:54 of the enterprise as much about as about
10:57 how you deal with the external
10:59 environment. You can trace a lot of the
11:01 origins of thinking about business
11:03 before they actually business strategy
11:04 before they actually used the word
11:07 strategy to a different set of problems
11:09 which relates to my the previous
11:10 discussion. It was about how to deal
11:12 with the labor unions whether it's sort
11:16 of tailorism um and time in motion
11:18 studies which started before the first
11:21 world war or the inter war discussions
11:23 uh about of the human relations school.
11:25 It was really about how you deal with
11:27 labor unrest. But by the 50s that didn't
11:29 seem to be the issue anymore. It was
11:31 about how the corporation could grow.
11:34 And it didn't really even deal with the
11:37 issues of competition. It was only as uh
11:40 American corporations started to be
11:43 unnerved by the uh arrival of serious
11:46 competition from Europe, from Germany,
11:48 but most of all from Japan that the
11:51 literature began to change and turn and
11:54 try to address this new set of problems.
11:57 And that confidence about the ability to
11:59 control events from the perspective of
12:02 corporate America of the 1950s is
12:05 gradually eroded. But what you have
12:10 again is uh a series of um authors
12:13 coming forward with propositions about
12:14 this is the way forward. And I think
12:17 business strategy more so than military
12:20 strategy or political strategy has
12:23 suffered uh from
12:27 uh what's often called the gurus uh th
12:29 those uh who come up with the big new
12:32 idea that will revolutionize the way you
12:35 do business and ensure growth and and
12:38 seeing off your all your uh competitors.
12:41 Peter Duker, who was sort of the first
12:44 great business strategists, said to him,
12:46 uh, what about the gurus? He was
12:48 sometimes described as the first guru,
12:50 said they use the word guru because
12:52 charlatans too long to fit on a
12:56 headline. uh uh and I discovered there's
12:58 a whole academic literature about fads
13:01 and fashions in strategy which uh goes
13:04 through the speed with which um these uh
13:07 are taken up uh and eventually dropped
13:10 and ask the question why do serious
13:13 executives who are not stupid fall for
13:16 this each time to which one answer is
13:18 you rarely lose your job by following a
13:21 fashion and indeed if you're seen to be
13:24 bucking the trend um going against the
13:27 trend uh you can lose your job. So being
13:29 part of a crowd in that sense could be
13:32 helpful. So in all these areas actually
13:36 strategy um never quite fulfills its
13:39 original promise. And what I'm trying to
13:43 do I think is to point out
13:46 um that maybe we need to think about
13:49 what strategy can do for you. Ask that
13:52 question in a slightly different way.
13:56 The word strategy now to be strategic
13:59 tends to mean to be long-term to have a
14:02 keen sense of objectives. Uh to have a
14:03 clear sense of how you get from where
14:05 you are at the moment to where you
14:06 really would like to
14:10 be. And that sort of thinking can be
14:12 very valuable. But in practice, it's
14:15 also very difficult and flawed for a
14:18 number of reasons. A strategy is not
14:21 synonymous with a plan. Plans can be
14:23 very useful, especially in those things
14:25 you can control. But when you're dealing
14:28 with other human beings who are willful
14:30 in their own way, who have their own
14:33 needs, their own objectives, even if
14:35 they're not on your side, even if
14:38 they're your employees, but certainly if
14:40 they're your competitors or your
14:43 enemies, um then it's going to be highly
14:45 unlikely that a plan is a sequence of
14:48 events that takes you from one point to
14:53 another point in a very uh predictable
14:56 process. uh is going to be realized.
14:59 Something is going to happen. The great
15:01 Prussian strategist
15:04 um who believed in plans nonetheless
15:07 said von Malta
15:10 uh no no plan survives contact with the
15:13 enemy. My much more favorite quote from
15:15 this which comes from Mike Tyson,
15:17 everybody's got a plan until they get
15:18 punched in the
15:21 mouth which it's it's the same basic
15:24 theme. Eisenhower once remarked that um
15:25 plans are useless, planning is
15:28 essential. And I think that's true. The
15:30 process of thinking ahead is highly
15:34 useful. But my uh suggestion is that
15:39 actually most good strategy is based not
15:41 on some notional endpoint but on the
15:44 problem at hand. What actually is the
15:46 problem you're trying to solve? In
15:48 answering that question, you may want to
15:50 think about where you where you would
15:51 like to be.
15:53 But a lot of the problem at hand is a
15:55 pretty defensive one because somebody
15:59 else has taken the initiative in war. Uh
16:01 if you've been attacked, uh victory may
16:03 seem a good idea, but a better idea is
16:06 survival. That's the first priority.
16:08 Then you may be able to start to think
16:11 about where else you you you'd like to
16:13 go. So just as a matter of practice, I
16:16 think good strategy starts with the here
16:18 and now. And it's about getting to the
16:20 next stage. And I think it's important
16:23 to keep that in mind because actually
16:26 the idea of an end point which is
16:28 captured by the idea of of the decisive
16:31 battle or the revolution is that that's
16:34 it. You know the problem solved. You
16:36 you've won your battle. You you've had
16:39 your revolution. But actually a whole
16:41 set of new problems are starting. And
16:43 how you've got to that point will affect
16:47 uh how you deal with the aftermath. You
16:48 defeat your opponent, but then you've
16:51 got to run somebody else's state. You
16:53 win an election, you've got to govern
16:56 the country. U you have a you you have a
16:58 revolution, you've got to implement the
17:00 new order. You've managed to take over,
17:02 you've got to merge two companies. And
17:03 unless you've thought those things
17:07 through or prepared for the next set of
17:09 questions you're going to face, you're
17:11 going to be at a bit of a loss. So the
17:14 idea of the end point, the ultimate
17:16 objective is always misleading. In this
17:20 sense, I would see um strategy which has
17:22 its own links with drama. You can think
17:25 of it as a sort of a story written in
17:28 the future tense about how things might
17:30 develop. It's not a three-act play. It's
17:33 a soap opera. Uh one thing follows
17:35 another. And if you view it in those
17:39 terms, then strategy becomes a continual
17:42 process of updating and responding to
17:45 events. Now, the thing that makes for
17:48 the the easiest and most successful
17:50 strategy is simply being stronger than
17:53 everybody else. It's an obvious point.
17:56 Um, but it often gets missed. If you've
17:59 got more resources, then you really
18:01 ought to win. Um, and if you don't,
18:03 you've probably screwed up pretty badly.
18:05 There's this great line from
18:07 Ecclesiastes about the race doesn't
18:10 always go to the most swift or the fight
18:12 doesn't always go to the most strong,
18:15 but Damon Renan uh had the important
18:18 rider. They're the ones to bet on. Uh
18:20 most of the time uh the race does go to
18:24 the most swift um and and the battle uh
18:26 does go to the most strong, but it's not
18:30 very interesting. It's there's there's
18:32 not much intellectual effort in working
18:36 out how to apply superior resource. So
18:39 in practice a lot of the interesting
18:40 strategy which is why revolutionary
18:43 strategy so interesting if often so
18:46 futile is the underdog the weakest
18:48 party. How can the the weakest party
18:51 gain strength? Um which is why I think
18:54 SunSu um is so beloved of contemporary
18:59 strategists, this Chinese sage from 500
19:03 BC who wrote on the art of war in uh
19:05 with great apherisms. It's it's it's
19:07 certainly worth reading, but it's
19:09 basically about being cleverer than your
19:11 opponent. If you can't outfight them,
19:13 you can outwit them. Who's not going to
19:15 enjoy the idea that that they're going
19:17 to be cleverer than everybody else? and
19:20 and uh and prove this in in some great
19:23 contest or other. And it's fine until
19:25 you meet somebody else who's also read
19:27 SunSu. But it's basically if you're
19:29 weaker, you want to appear stronger. If
19:30 you're stronger, you want to appear
19:31 weaker. If you're going on the attack,
19:33 you must make it look like you're going
19:34 on the defensive. If you're going on the
19:35 defensive, make it look like you're
19:36 going on the attack. You get the idea?
19:38 Well, if everybody's got this same idea,
19:41 you can never engage at all. There's a
19:43 role for deception and craftiness and
19:45 keen intelligence and being smart in all
19:49 of this. Uh but to my mind, if you look
19:53 back as to the basis of a lot of success
19:55 when you're not starting from strength,
19:58 it's coalition building, finding a
20:00 partner, finding an ally. It may be
20:04 difficult. Um it may involve awkward
20:06 compromises, but actually that's as
20:10 often as not the best way uh to go about
20:14 things. So to conclude, the history of
20:18 strategy is to some extent a history of
20:21 disillusionment. It's a history of
20:24 attempts to set up scientific ways of
20:26 thinking about the future that will
20:29 guarantee certain sorts of results that
20:31 have always fallen short. But in the
20:34 process, a lot of very interesting ideas
20:37 come out and it focuses your mind on
20:40 onto issues of agency and context and so
20:41 on. in ways that if you not thinking
20:44 strategically, you may never come
20:47 across. If you're aware of that, then
20:51 your strate be being a good strategist
20:54 will get you somewhere. Um, as long as
20:56 you don't think it's going to solve all
20:59 your problems. The relationship between
21:01 the notion of strategy and the notion of
21:03 uncertainty. Sometimes we see strategy
21:05 as a way of coping with uncertainty as
21:06 it were living with uncertainty and
21:08 sometimes we see it as a way of
21:11 resolving uncertainty, removing
21:12 uncertainty. It sounds to me as though
21:15 you're a supporter of the former rather
21:16 than the latter view. I think we
21:18 conceptualize this issue more clearly
21:21 now than we did in the past. But this
21:23 was a way by which you could remove
21:25 uncertainty from your calculations was
21:27 always one of the hopes and it's very
21:29 strong if you read some of the
21:31 literature around the managerial
21:36 revolution of the 50s and 60s um that
21:39 we've now got a way of achieving a sort
21:41 of stability in our operations that has
21:44 eluded those in the past in the same way
21:46 former chancellors have talked about
21:48 ending the boom and bust cycle that
21:51 somehow we've cracked a problem that
21:53 that has eluded people in the past and
21:56 they haven't because uh in the end
21:58 things happen that you're not prepared
22:01 for uh and you get caught out or there's
22:03 a complacency develops that sews the
22:05 seeds of its uh of its own destruction.
22:10 So definitely uh it's um about coping
22:12 with uncertainty, recognizing
22:14 uncertainty but in no sense overcoming it.
