The Difference Between Real and Feel

I am a business strategist, so what does that mean? Business strategy is golf. You stand on the tee box. You take into account your environment: Is the tee elevated or are you hitting up hill? Where is the wind blowing, at the tee box, at the flag? Where are the hazards that you can see? What does the yardage book tell you? You then select a club, visualize the path you want the ball to take, set up, use the experience that your muscles remember and take your swing. Now, typically you didn't see all the hazards, the wind died as you struck the ball, you hit a little thin or gave it a slice, you hit a sprinkler head. So, you find your ball, re-evaluate the environment, fairway or rough, flat or side-hill, sitting up or in a divot. You might re-evaluate your goals: Can't make birdie but should still make par. You select a club, envision your shot and try again. You go through the same cycle of re-evaluation and fine tuning until the ball is in the hole. Hopefully, you congratulate yourself on a birdie, but you may be planning the next hole to recover from a bogie. Business strategy is follows the same pattern. Evaluate your market, your competitors, your own capabilities, then act. Evaluate your progress, re-evaluate your tactics and goals, then act again.

Now could you write that approach to each hole down in advance? Of course, you could. Would it be the way that you actually play the hole on any given day? Of course, not. Would having thought through the hole help you play it on that day? Yes. Business strategy, like course management, helps prepare you to make better decisions in real life circumstances. Do you know when to try and make the hero shot or bump it back onto the fairway? Chance favours the prepared mind. Thinking about strategy should first and foremost prepare your mind, the plan writes itself afterwards.

So, why does a creature like me exist? A business strategist? For the same reason that the best golf player in the world has a coach, the difference between real and feel. Even Tiger Woods only knows how his stroke feels, he needs a third party observer to tell him what is real about his stroke. This is why world class business hires world class advice. Even the best businesses are constrained by their experience and "feel" of their operations. A third party can bring an objective evaluation and new techniques, even new psychology to help the best perform better. Especially, if you want that ten extra yards or to shave five strokes off your score.

The rest of us, well, we all play better after a lesson or two.