I previously mentioned about this matrix introduced by a boss I used to work under. I’ve produced graphical representation of it. And I think this is an extremely elegant way of understanding the difference between strategy and tactics. You can be misguided by your abilities in one dimension and fooled into thinking that is the most important but both are as important.
Though in today’s world, people are biased towards paying more for people who are able to think strategically, it is likely because getting strategy wrong just puts you in such a mediocre position. On the other hand, if your tactics are mediocre while strategy is great, there might be some slim chance of doing fine.
Either way, the purpose of this post is once again to remind ourselves that strategy and tactics are both required and it’s important when we think about our careers, and job-seeking, that we not only try to beef up our CV, write nice cover letters and apply all kinds of tactics you can find online. But perhaps more importantly, you need to think through the strategy of the job fit and the role you actually want to do.
The framework I’ve developed for approaching this has been made free in my ebook; and please do head over to my coaching hub for more resources.