Undoubtedly you have sat through many meetings to plan your business throughout your career. Many times (possibly too many to count) you have discussed the strategy your company is going to take, deciding on who will do what when and how. Yet do you realize that you have just spent countless hours discussing tactics?  Do you know the difference between strategy and tactics?

Without going through a dictionary definition of the two, here are three things for each you can remember.  This will help you keep your perspective (or sanity) during business planning meetings.  You will look like the smartest person in the room.

A Course of Action

Strategy is:

• Quite simple the big picture of where you want to go and who you want to be.  It is the end to your means.   Or to make it really simple for some… it is your goal(s).
• It is the road map that all actions are to align with in the advancement of your business goals.
• A plan that is always looking forward into the future with a visualization of the end.

Tactics are:

• The day-to-day actions you and your team are going to take to help you achieve you goals.  They are the courses of action that will be followed by the different divisions of your company in the achievement of your strategic success.
• Always adjusting to the business environment, new information, and resources you have at your disposal.
• They are what you do to win.

So, next time you are stuck in a business-planning meeting remember the three items for strategy and the three items for tactics.  If your meeting on strategy starts to get bogged down in the nuances of who will do what and when, you can put a stop to it.