Anatomy of Strategy: Fighting for the Future Through Narrative, Logic and Grammar.

摘要

This monograph addresses the fact that most writing on strategy is descriptive rather than explanatory. Describing strategy in terms of categories such as 'grand strategy,' or 'theater strategy,' or by various analogies, does not illuminate what happens when one practices strategy. Strategy is a cognitive process rather than some tangible object that one can point at or manipulate. Accordingly, this is a theory of how strategy is formed and why it works. The process that produces strategy is based on the creation of narrative. In this sense, the theory is one of meta-cognition. If one understands how human beings approach certain aspects of reality, then one can move strategy from the realm of intangible process to observable manifestation of community effort. The theory here advanced is heavily influenced by the strategic thought of John Boyd, the idea of relative advantage developed by Everett Dolman, the cognitive research led by Daniel Kahneman, Complexity Theory and Quantum Physics, and the skepticism articulated by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Reality is a field of circumstances; these are the fundamental building blocks of any human attempt to change or transform reality. Circumstances are like protons, neutrons and electrons within quantum theory. Strategy is the effort to incorporate purpose into the play of circumstances; strategy provides structure to circumstance. Purpose differentiates circumstances by making some relevant and others irrelevant. Theory describes the larger field of irrelevant circumstances as undifferentiated. Relevance is not absolute or fixed, and thus circumstances move from undifferentiated, to differentiated, to undifferentiated. This pulse of relevance resonates throughout this theory of strategy. In order to accommodate this play, or the shifting state of things, strategists rely on narratives. A story, as a system of cause and effect driven by purpose, offers a way to orient the environment to communal desire.