Reality: The Foundation of Strategy

Astronaut Micheal Reed Barratt (MD. , MS.)

How should we go about setting goals for ourselves? Should we just live in our dreams and use our imaginations to decide on what we want in life and how to satisfy those wants, or should we focus on the world around us, it's every detail and nuance, and then set our goals and plan our paths based upon the opportunities we see there?  I chose this as the first idea to explore in this blog because it is such a critical one to anybody who claims to or wishes to be strategic in the way they go about their lives and also to give a taste of what I want this blog to be about.

I'm a student, not a teacher of strategy, my goal for Thinking Strategically is this: to share my numerous thoughts and conclusions on the art of strategy (that have up till now gone into an expanding number of variously sized notebooks) and improve upon them with the help of fellow strategists. In every post I want to paint a picture of an idea as bluntly and clearly as possible, drawing on examples from history, daily life, and the games I avidly enjoy (chess, poker, and few others). I'm always looking to develop a better understanding of reality and how to operate within it, so If I seem like I'm being confrontational or aggressive, that's because I am, and I'm looking for a good debate. 

The more keenly and attentively we observe the world around us, the more opportunities we will discover and the better we will become at setting realistic goals for ourselves that get us what we want. This does not mean we should throw our dreams off a cliff, our dreams are very important, because they guide us towards the right opportunities. Two eight year old boys, we'll call them Roy and George, both have dreams of being astronauts. Roy spends as much time as possible playing with space toys and watching Star Wars, things that immerse him in what he dreams of. George on the other hand takes a step back, and starts poking around his house looking for opportunities he has to actually get into space. Wood? Nails? Tin foil? Dad comes home to find a countdown for take-off going on at picnic table. 

Which one of these boys do you think is more likely to actually end up in space? While building a spaceship out of wood and foil isn't exactly what an astronaut does and it certainly wouldn't have actually gotten him into space, from the perspective of the eight year old kid stuck at home on a sunny summer afternoon, that was the opportunity that had the most relevance to actually reaching his dream, and so he set that as his goal. This is the mindset, stepping back and looking at reality and what it has to offer, that we must always have. 

No matter how much we observe reality, we won't always make the right decisions, set the right goals, or follow the right paths, it may even lead us into trouble, like the trouble George got from his dad for nailing two by fours to the picnic table, but the solution is not to retreat back to the comfort of our dreaming, of our space toys and Sci-Fi movies, but to that much more rigorously examine reality, discovering where we went wrong and what other opportunities we missed or discarded that we should now take. Three weeks after his failed launch, our space ship building eight year old is back to school. His third grade class is visited by astronaut Micheal R. Barratt. During the presentation George learns how much astronauts have to know to be selected by NASA and excel at their jobs. Taking a step back once again, he realizes that to be an astronaut requires knowledge, and that his school is offering him the opportunity to get just that. 

My definition of strategy is this: The art of using the means available to achieve goals in the most efficient way possible. I said this idea of setting our goals based upon reality is critical to anyone who wishes to be strategic, because without it it is impossible to be strategic. Without a grip on reality, it is impossible to set any reachable goals. Our other young aspiring astronaut, Roy, will never be able to be strategic, he will never develop or learn strategies for memorizing vocabulary or solving quadratic equations, because he never set the goals of knowing French or getting a 4.0 in Algebra II. Roy very well might set goals, of winning the lottery or buying a nice car, but he will never reach them unless by luck, they aren't reachable, in fact, they are dreams, not goals, just like his astronaut dream. If Roy took on the reality approach like George, even after years of living in his dreams, he could start actually reaching them. He could examine the opportunities reality was offering him, getting a second job and paying of his credit card, real reachable goals he could develop strategies to achieve and are paths towards fulfilling his dream of buying the car he wants (reality doesn't offer a path towards winning the lottery). 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Sci-Fi movies, space toys, or Star Wars(I'm actually a big fan), along with a innumerable list of other enjoyable activities such as spectator sports, video games, or TV, but these can easily go from a fun past-time to an anchor that keeps us living in our dreams by giving us short-term fulfillment. Many people may even feel set free by these activities, but they are actually enslaved by an illusion. Being in touch with reality is what sets a person free to use his imagination and creativity to its full capacity. 

The ability to separate ourselves from our dreams, to step back and develop a keen understanding of world around us, and focus in on achieving reachable goals based on the opportunities reality is offering us, is the foundation to thinking strategically. Almost ten years later, George has graduated high school Valedictorian of his class and has been accepted to the Air Force Academy, well on his way to actually achieving what he dreamed of, not by living in his dreams, but by examining the reality of the world around him for opportunities. We must view reality like a drug, we have to have it to survive, we feed off it, it fuels our creative process.  This mind-set, of living in the world as it is, not in our dreams of what we wish it to be, is what is necessary if we are to pursue the art of strategy. It takes great discipline to develop such a mind-set, but in the end there are great rewards.