Wishes Are Not Strategy: Lessons from the Space Shuttle’s Conflicting Goals

The previous post described America’s clear, explicit strategy during World War II. This one examines costly stagnation in America’s space program, caused by trying to accommodate too many contradictory strategic objectives simultaneously. Remember: there are not 100 equally important tasks. There is one most important task. --- The original case for building the Space Shuttle was NASA’s request to Congress for a vehicle that could reduce the cost of putting each pound of payload into orbit to below US$100. NASA ultimately built five shuttles. Two were lost in crashes, killing 14 astronauts. Over the program’s operating life, the average transportation cost was US$28,000 per pound. The Space Shuttle program was bound to fail. Too many people imposed their own demands on it. Congress wanted lower satellite-launch costs and therefore demanded “low-cost” solid-fuel rockets. Yet those rockets were highly unreliable and actually expensive. The public wanted crewed spaceflight, although most space missions do not require people aboard. Carrying people requires crew-support systems, greatly increasing complexity. The Air Force wanted the shuttle shaped like an airplane, with wings, so it could perform missions both in space and in the atmosphere. Legislators also wanted their own states to receive a share of the project through local contractors… Satisfying everyone’s wishes produced this incoherent hybrid, leaving America’s space program spending heavily without achieving much. ---- Democracy can become a wishing well for interest groups and politicians pursuing their own interests, with outcomes shaped by competing factions’ compromises. Leaders must still hold to principles of their own. --- Ideally, democracy is a self-operating deliberative system that lets good ideas emerge. In practice, it often becomes a bargaining arena for interest groups. Strategically, roughly three kinds of people inhabit it— First are overgrown children: interest groups. They specialize in demands, considering only their own needs, disregarding others and the national interest, and hoping to claim every benefit. Second are politicians, who coordinate demands and broker compromises. You concede here; I grant a benefit there. These private exchanges often interfere with long-term strategy. America has its distinctive “pork-barrel” phenomenon: bills passed by Congress commonly contain numerous additional conditions exchanged for supporting votes… That is why bills are so thick. Neither group provides strategy. You therefore need a third kind: strategists. Like Roosevelt during World War II, they must withstand pressure from overgrown children and politicians and make hard choices to abandon some undertakings and some people. Small companies may find strategy easier because they have fewer such demanding stakeholders. Large companies and countries inevitably contain interest groups, requiring coordination and compromise—just as Roosevelt had to accommodate the Soviet Union to some extent. But pay attention! Rumelt says compromise is acceptable, yet one line must hold: your actions cannot directly conflict. You cannot demand this, that, and everything else, as in the shuttle program, or the project will lose direction. --- A fashionable approach to running a company is to discuss a “strategy statement” collectively, agree on values, and implement it together, like a hobby club… Rumelt says this is entirely inadequate. Without deliberate human choice and design, a company’s systems inevitably fill with conflicting demands. A leader’s most important duty is to prevent actions from contradicting one another— * You cannot demand sustainable development and long-term competitive advantage while cutting research and development spending for short-term financial results. * You cannot say your product’s selling point is stability and reliability while marketing it through every passing trend. * You cannot demand a “data-driven” approach while outsourcing software development to another company. * You cannot cut costs by closing one of two warehouses while demanding fast delivery from salespeople… Yet such internal conflicts characterize many organizations. --- In 2015, the United Nations established the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. You need not examine their details to know this program cannot be achieved. Why? It has 17 goals. Those 17 goals contradict one another. They require coastal and marine conservation while also demanding employment and the elimination of hunger and poverty. What should poor people who fish for a living do? They call for agricultural development while ending petroleum-based fertilizers, and for ecosystem protection while increasing food production… Rumelt says promising 17 goals reveals an unfit politician: it is political indulgence. Strategy must establish priorities, identifying what matters most and what you can do, rather than distributing Christmas presents to overgrown children. ---- Rumelt defines strategy as a combination of policies and actions aimed at overcoming a critical challenge. Having policies and actions means some departments matter more than others, some people more than others, and some needs more than others. You must establish sequence, importance, and urgency. A company is neither a market nor a democracy. Market mechanisms and democratic methods may sustain everyday operations, but they cannot provide strategy. Strategists seeking unconventional actions and a change of direction need real authority. You need the power to dismiss people and eliminate departments for your words to carry weight. This also means that a flexible company capable of executing strategy must give business units real authority. You cannot expect a department to follow routine procedures while also demanding genuine competitiveness. Real authority enables strategy; strategy enables competitiveness. --- The most basic takeaway is distinguishing wishes from strategy. Overgrown children make contradictory wishes. Politicians muddle through and seek compromises. Only strategists select some wishes, abandon others, and execute decisively. Strategy requires definite priorities and feasibility. #得到萬維鋼精英日課5 (Wan Weigang’s Daily Lessons for the Elite, Volume 5, on Dedao, descriptive title)