Tactics vs. Strategies

Some great tactics make for very poor strategies.

• Using your authority as a parent or boss is a great tactic to get your family or team aligned during an emergency. But if it becomes your go-to strategy, it will soon have counterproductive effects.

• If you are such a good liar that your lies have a 1% chance of getting caught, lying can be an effective tactic to get out of a difficult situation. But if it becomes your strategy, and you lie once a week, you have a 99.5% chance of getting caught over a decade.

• Binge eating or binge watching YouTube shorts might be a great tactic to manage a moment of extreme anxiety. But if it becomes your strategy to manage below-average moods, your life will soon contain growing problems and dissatisfaction.

The point is that growing beyond a certain point requires solving root-cause problems and acquiring long-term assets such as skills, relationships, and trust.

Tactics that do not help with either can be used as a one-off when you are in a tight spot, but should not become your long-term strategy.

Is there any “shortcut” you apply at work or in your life that helps you avoid facing a problem or overcome a lack of skills, relationships, or trust? If so, are you using it as a “rare one-off” or is it becoming your go-to strategy?

In the latter case, the key is to think not whether using it once makes sense (it probably does, at least in the short term and at least from an emotional landscape point of view, otherwise you would not do it), but rather consider the long-term consequences of you using it over and over. A typical example is avoiding thinking about your problems. This is a fine tactic to get through a particularly stressful day. However, if you never face your problems, every day will soon become stressful.

Once you have identified a short-term tactic that you should stop using as your go-to strategy, here are two questions that might help find a better long-term alternative. What root problem can you tolerate for the moment, but would not be able to tolerate for the rest of your life? What changes should you make, and what skills or relationships should you build to overcome it?

Note: In my book “Winning Long-Term Games,” I explain how people get stuck in life when they adopt effective short-term tactics as long-term strategies, and I explore in much deeper detail, with more extensive examples and more practical solutions.