What is Strategy?
Curiously enough, the word strategy wasn't in the English language until about the late 18 th or early 19th century. Prior to that time the closest thing was the word stratagem which meant a trick or maneuver to gain advantage over an opponent. Sometime around the turn of the 18th and 19th century the word strategy was imported from the French word strategy which meant the office or art of the general. The simplest definition of strategy would be a plan for achieving an objective. While there is nothing wrong with this definition It encompasses unilateral or single actor plans of action, i.e., plans that do not involve other actors either as allies or opponents. For instance, as I write this I am preparing for a trip to Maine, and I am developing plans to accomplish that objective. Decisions about whether to go get my oil changed this morning and when to start packing boxes would seem to be more logistics than strategy. However, one might see strategy in it if I was developi...