Strategic?...Really?

First of all, thanks to Pastor Steven Furtick at Elevation Church & leadership guru, Seth Godin for some inspiration on this topic. Today Pastor Furtick tweeted a message that coupled with Godin's blog post really fired me up.
One of the biggest buzz words in business & ministry these days is "strategic". Everyone wants to be considered a strategic leader in whatever field they are involved. However, when I look around at different organizations, I have to say, "Strategic... really?" To borrow an idea from Seth Godin, I believe that many of us have confused tactics with strategy. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in many ministry organizations, the tactics are the strategy.

Strategy involves identifying what your ministry or business is trying to accomplish. It doesn't have to be flashy, but it needs to be defined, & it would be great if it's accomplishing something that no other organization is able to accomplish. However, strategy is not tactics. Tactics are the means by which you go about implementing your strategy. Unfortunately we spend more time refining our tactics rather than making sure our strategy is clear & that everyone involved in our organization understands that strategy. What follows is "vision leakage". Opposing visions/strategies arise because the group has never really been unified on strategy. Instead they've been focusing on tactics/programs/events/promotions.

Steven Furtick commented that "all motion is not movement". We've all been there right? Has your car ever been stuck in the mud? There's lots of motion & lots of energy being expended, but there is no real movement. Sometimes our organizations get into similar ruts. We're expending lots of energy & doing lots of stuff, but we're not really going anywhere, & we're not leading our people anywhere. Therefore, we have to fight the temptation to focus on tactics at the expense of our strategy & vision. If we're not unified on strategy & vision, then the greatest tactics in the world will fail to accomplish anything that's lasting.

How have you seen this tension in your own organization? How can you begin to make sure that strategy comes before tactics in your ministry or business?

For more on this topic:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/when-tactics-drown-out-strategy.html
http://twitter.com/stevenfurtick