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Mintzberg’s Positioning School brings together the kind of maxim-based tactics-book approach of Sun Tzu in The Art of War with the insights of twentieth century game theory. “Tactics” is probably as misunderstood as a concept as strategy, and the two words are often used interchangeably. The essence of tactics is repeatable actions which can be prepared or practiced for predicted situations. In this sense, they are ‘positions’ that one takes up, hence the name in Mintzberg’s terminology. Some tactics, such as ‘buy low, sell high’, always work if the situation when they can be appiled comes up. Other tactics, especially those used in warfare and combat sports, may depend on an element of surprise or novelty.

Most strategies fail. It’s a sad fact. The biggest reason for strategies failing is that they are never implemented. And the most common reason why they are not implemented is because they are not remembered by the people charged with implementing them at the point that they would make a difference. In a crisis, people revert to type, doing what they have always done. We will see more of this when we look at Embedding — Mintzberg’s Cultural School.

In the mean time, though, the positioning school has a great deal to offer in terms of memorability. A simple set of five or six key phrases which are easy to communicate and to apply can mean the difference between a strategy that never makes it out of the Board room and one which transforms the organisation.

It is tempting to simply collect maxims from management books and offer those as your tactics. However, this is a counsel of despair, because tactics only work when the situation is right.

So, in a single minute, how do you sketch out the core tactics for your strategy?
Rather than dream up some catchy slogans, the true tactitian will consider the most likely scenarios and situations, and then consider what the best response in each case is. You can draw up a simple truth table like this:

If this kind of diagram looks familiar, you have probably seen it in Boston Consulting Group’s famous Boston Matrix, which looks at market share and market growth, as follows:

Most people find the Boston Matrix baffling, and a better example might be Stephen Covey’s time use matrix, a version of which could be:

These kinds of matrices are most often seen with four squares, as high/low, yes/no, but there is no particular reason why a matrix should not have three or more possible choices.

Although they look like magic the first time you see them, a matrix of this kind can easily be constructed — with a little practice — in less than a minute. From the matrix, it’s fairly simple to put the four positions into words.

An alternative to doing your own tactics — and this is why it makes sense to put tactics after allies — is to adopt your tactics wholesale from your new allies. In many cases you will form alliances because your allies bring expertise to the table which your organisation does not have in house.

Returning to the villagers, this is in fact exactly the strategy that they follow. The samurai arrive with a vast wealth of tactical skills. In fact, from this point, the development of the strategy moves from the hands of the villagers to the hands of the Samurai.