The opposite of implementation

Every time I've heard somebody talk about the move from strategy to implementation in consulting recently, something has been bothering me. Finally I've worked out what it is: in consulting terms strategy isn't the opposite of implementation; advice is.

We're guilty of it ourselves: there has been so much talk about the need for consultants to implement recently, that everything which isn't implementation tends to get bundled up under the umbrella of strategy. But surely strategy is a consulting service, like improving operational performance or managing people, which can have both advisory and implementary elements to it.

In itself that's just a matter of taxonomy, though it's a little surprising that the big strategy firms haven't been trying to counter the trend. After all, if they are to remain to be known as strategy firms then it's a taxonomy that goes some way to trapping them, unreasonably, in a part of the market about which clients are most critical.

But perhaps what it also points to is a deeper malaise in the condition of strategy consulting itself which needs to be addressed. After all, if strategy is being confused with advice then it's probably because advice is the only part of strategy consulting that most clients see. In his excellent book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt ("strategy's strategist", according to the McKinsey Quarterly) sets out a compelling case for the idea that strategy is a term now being used to describe fluffy aspirations, motivational goals, blue-sky thinking and a host of other things that are actually anything but. Critically, Rumelt says that strategy must contain "coherent action". In other words, implementation is very much the business of strategy.

That doesn't mean that strategy consultants must always actually do the implementation, of course, but neither does operational performance consulting automatically imply that consultants will implement what they recommend. The point is that strategy and advice are two different things and that we do the former an immense disservice when we confuse it with the latter.

We'll do our bit to sort out the taxonomy; hopefully strategy consultants will do their bit to start showing clients what good strategy looks like. And maybe even to stick around and implement it.