Everyone in the business world wants to be the “Strategy” person. Everyone wants to brainstorm the next big idea. They want to ooo and aaah over the cool new technology. They want to imagine what three years from now could look like if they are given a blank check to “do the right thing.”
Strategy is cool.
But the dirty secret of Strategy is that it can only be successful if it’s layered on top of effective operations. Strategy on a broken or non-existent business is pointless because it’s effectively a windmill still in the factory. It’s a great idea but there’s no way for it to produce its power.
Being an Operations person (or Ops person in the hip parlance) is boring. Who wants to just keep the lights turned on? There’s no future in it.
Other than, that’s what the future is all about. Keeping the lights turned on is how the strategy people get to keep their jobs and do their fun things. Making money is why the business exists. You can’t just go be a pie-in-the-sky thinker without understanding that, at the end of the day, Ops people are who are going to make or break your big Strategic vision.
Here’s another secret while we are at it. The best Strategists know Operations like the back of their hand. Strategy not bound by operational constraints is just dead electrons.