TURTLES And STRATEGY Have More In Common Than You Think
Harvard Business School, Professor Michael Porter, the world’s best thinker on strategy defines strategy as a competitive position, “deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.” In other words, you need to understand your competitors and the market you’ve chosen to determine how your business should react. In the words of Andy Grove, former chairman, and chief executive officer of Intel: “To understand a company’s strategy, look at what they actually do rather than what they say they will do.” Real strategy—in companies and in our lives—is created through hundreds of everyday decisions about where we spend our resources. Canadian Academic and Management Professor at Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University in Montreal, Henry Mintzberg, emphasizes that deliberate and emergent strategies may be conceived as two ends of a continuum along which real-world strategies lie.
When I am asked by my colleagues to give an easy-to-understand explanation of what strategy is to me, I often compare it to a turtle’s shell, and more precisely I compare what strategy is to the company as to what carapace is to the turtle. Among those common things between turtles and strategy we find:
Most turtles can hide their head in their shells but some species, like the sea turtle, can’t. Strategy is not always made to protect the company, but rather companies need to protect and grow their strategy. Strategy is not made to hide behind, moreover not all companies can hide behind their strategy.
A turtle’s carapace, or upper shell, is flatter to help them swim while a tortoises’ carapace is higher and dome-shaped. A strategy determines what companies can and cannot do. It is the result of the company’s resources, processes, and profit formula.
A turtle’s shell is attached to its body. Turtles do not look for a bigger shell as they get bigger, instead, the shell grows with the turtle. A company’s strategy is born with the company and grows with it. Companies don’t replace their strategies but make them grow. Even how small or big it is, a company cannot survive without a strategy, just like a turtle cannot survive without its shell.
By looking at the turtle’s shell we gain a lot of insights about the age of the turtle, seasons of great nutrition, and fasting seasons. The company’s strategy is clear and relevant to everyone, it shows how it has evolved over time, what emergent events changed deliberate ones, as well as how the strategy was shaped by good times and bad times.
The color of a turtle’s shell varies; common colors are brown, black, and olive green. Some species also have markings that are red, orange, yellow, or gray. You’ll never find two companies with exactly the same strategy. The strategy will differ according to the circumstances each company has been through.
A turtle’s shell will not grow overnight. It needs time and many seasons. The strategy can never be completed overnight. It needs time and many years and events that shape slowly shape it. The process is somehow neverending.
Turtles are some of the oldest animals around. Strategy is also very old. The term “strategy” is derived indirectly from the Classic and Byzantine (330 A.D.) Greek “strategos,” which means “general.” While the term is credited to the Greeks, no Greek ever used the word. The Greek equivalent for the modern word “strategy” would have been “strategike episteme” or (general’s knowledge) “strategon sophia” (general’s wisdom).
The largest turtles weigh more than a thousand pounds. Great strategies weigh tons of gold and value.
A turtle’s shell is not an exoskeleton. Some people mistake a turtle’s hard outer shell for an exoskeleton, but it’s actually a modified rib cage that’s part of the vertebral column. Strategy is not a deliberate business plan it is what the company plans along with how the competitive forces shape strategy.
Turtles lose their first “baby tooth” within an hour. Baby turtles, called hatchlings, have an “egg tooth” on their beak to help them hatch out of their shell. This tooth disappears approximately an hour after hatching. Companies make wrong investments and decisions and can fail anytime even as they launch. However, companies that have enough remaining capital to invest in new ventures and projects survive and thrive.