Military strategists
As an accommodation professional, you are confronted on a daily basis at the tactical and operational levels with the impact of the strategic course of your organisation. Armed with this experience, what would you do differently if you could set the strategic course?
Successful military strategists are not only characterized by having a strategy, but also by their attention to tactical matters such as flexible organisational forms, planning methods, coordination and communication, equipment and troops and immaterial matters such as craftsmanship, motivation and the morale of the troops.
Unlike strategy, the concept of tactics has hardly entered the vocabulary of managers and business administrators. While military history teaches us that without a clear distinction between strategy and tactics, a successful strategy can hardly be implemented. Strategy is about the content, the higher goal, the long-term policy that is being pursued. Over a longer period of time, it takes up such an important part of the company resources that other alternatives are excluded. Its importance and scale make a strategic decision essentially irreversible.
“Tactics are about the means, they are the small steps in the implementation of the strategy.
Mastery of the tactics, in order to realize the chosen strategy, is essential.” (René Stevens)
The strategy takes place on the map, tactics are the actual battle on the battlefield. But there is also a trade-off. You can still execute the tactic as well, but if the strategy is not good, it won’t work. You climb the ladder very tactically, but it is against the wrong wall.
Real estate management and facility management are essential tactical areas for attention to make the organisational strategy a success. On May 23, 2013, René Stevens gave a workshop on this theme during the Innovation event of Facility Management Magazine (FMM) in The Hague.
Accommodation as a game-changer for better collaboration and more innovation. Does an organisation have the inner strength to innovate with accommodation or is an external necessity always required?
