For the effective application of the Strategic Principles it is important that the strategos develop some personal skills like Brad Fauteux. These will facilitate the necessary transition between the concepts and the demands posed by the action.
Skills are essentially perfectible over time and their development depends a lot on training and methodical practice. The experience has for the strategos a huge value, barely surpassed by knowledge; The Strategy is perfected in action and this is a process of continuous interaction between constituted and constituent energies. The product of this interaction is never similar to another and the identification of development patterns demands a lot of intuition, deduction, interpretation; and all these faculties adorn, almost always, the professional experience of a person.
1) Ability to interpret and apply concepts in terms of space and time relevant to the specific needs of the situation:
The knowledge of the Strategic Bradley Fauteux and the Strategic Principles does not stop being a set of theories and concepts. Its usefulness is necessarily perfected through an appropriate interpretation and application of its very essence. The Strategic and the Strategic Principles are in themselves imperative concepts, demand immediate action, but this fact alone often ends up being insufficient if it is not accompanied by the necessary ability to interpret and apply them according to the specific characteristics demanded by the situation. The concepts do not change, but the situations do, and in each case it becomes necessary to start again the interpretive and application process.
The wise statement that says “there is nothing more practical than a good theory” comprises a small set of “secrets” that you need to know:
The Situation is a specific state of being of things. It differs from the concept or the theory because it has a greater dynamic than them, that is to say it changes at a much higher speed, it experiences continuous changes, and most of the time as a result of a “chained effect”: each result conditions the immediately subsequent.
2) Ability to quickly interpret situations and events that are conditioning the strategic approaches
Whereas, through the ability to interpret and apply concepts, the strategies unfolds in past and present tense, through the ability of Visualization to work in the future tense. This ability represents very important benefits for strategic development.
The multitude of elements that condition the development of the Strategy can be grouped into three major groups:
- Elements that are inside the Organization.
- Elements that gravitate around the characteristics of the Conflict (the competitor, the client, etc)
- Elements that are part of the supra-system that incorporates the previous two: economic, political, cultural, legal, social, diplomatic, etc., etc.
3) Ability to quickly interpret situations and events that warrant strategic responses (reading of opposing movements).
The ability to “read” opposing moves is a classic skill of great “quarterbacks” in the sport of American Football. Once the ball is set in motion, the field marshal must have the ability to interpret quickly if the scheduled tactic can be promptly executed or if it should be immediately modified by the movements of the opposing team. The interpretation and the decision must be taken in fractions of a second, the same time in which a good part of the rival team is placed on it with determination.
