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The mere sugges-tion that tacticsprecede strategy should cause notonly marketers butall executives toshudder.We havebeen schooled—drilled—in whathas become almostinstinctive withinmany organiza-tions:we start marketing planning by identifying objectives,then proceed tocreate strategies designed to realize ourobjectives and,finally,choose to exe-cute those tactics that give life to ourstrategies.
Why,then,is it that many strategiesare still-born and others live an unful-filled life?
As Leo Kiely,president ofCoorsBrewing Company,once said,“Strategies are war-games.Tactics arewar itself.”Oh,the strategies are criti-cally important.They provide neededdirection for mobilizing an organiza-tion to achieve a competitive advan-tage.In an “age ofsameness,”this couldbe the essential difference between win-ning and losing in the marketplace.Butthe strategies chosen are appropriatedirection only ifwe can execute them(and they lead to the achievement of our objectives).We’re all familiar with companies andbrands whose poorly executed strategiesresulted in failure.Think about it.Agiven strategy is useless—even counter-productive—ifthecompany lacks theability to success-fully execute it.And,all too often,strategies are con-cocted withoutunderstanding thecompany’s capabili-ties for successfully executing them inthe marketplace.Before we can begin to develop astrategy,we need to have a soundunderstanding ofthe objective and ourability to achieve it,particularly withcompetitors striving for similar oropposing objectives in what is typically a win/lose marketplace (one wins at theexpense ofanother’s loss).Even inthose categories where significant mar-
INSIGHTS AND INFORMATION FOR TODAY’S BUSINESS LEADERS
A P R I L 2 0 0 5
The resignation of Boeing CEO HarryStonecipher made national headlines lastmonth after an intercepted e-mail revealedhis affair with a female co-worker. Thenews brought the issues of office romanceand electronic monitoring back into thenational debate.As a result, AMA’s “Workplace Dating”and “E-mail and Instant Messaging” sur-veys received national attention as theirfindings helped frame this story as itunfolded in the press.AMA was featured in
The Wall Street  Journal,USA Today 
and CNN among othernational media. For more information onthese and other AMA surveys, orto become a survey participant, visitwww.amanet.org/research.
AMA Surveys in the News
www.amanet.org
The Member Newsletter of the American Management Association
continued on next page
Which Comes First in Marketing:Strategy or Tactics?
BY RICHARD CZERNIAWSKI AND MIKE MALONEY
Five Tips to SalesForce Success
Would you like your organization’s salesforce to be able to close a million dollardeal in two sales calls? Here is advicefrom Patricia Gardner,author of 
Code-Breakers,
a book designed to help salesprofessionals learn the five secrets of strategic sales.
1.Have preparation time.
Too often,sales reps aren’t given enough—orany—time to research new accounts oreven their own product lines.
2.Be results-oriented.
Go after thecontacts most likely to result in big newbusiness.
3.Encourage and reward teamwork.
Developing a teamwork ethic may be achallenge,especially ifcompetition hasbeen the main motivator for your staff.But bigger sales come about when youlower the barriers between sales andother departments.
4.Increase cross-selling opportuni-ties.
Teach sales personnel to introducetheir client contacts with access to chan-nels outside ofthe rep’s core area tothose sales personnel in your firm whohandle those channels.
5.Show your appreciation.
You wanta formal compensation plan thatincludes a finder’s fee for opportunitiesfound and passed along.
Check out AMA’s new Sales Conference atwww.amanet.org.
 
 American Management Association
Executive Matters
Which Comes First in Marketing:Strategy or Tactics?
continued from preceding page
ket growth pulls every competitor intothe winner’s circle,some will win more.So it makes sense to take inventory ofpotential tactics that the company can employ before finalizing strategicthinking.We can’t use what we don’thave (e.g.,size).And we shouldn’tattempt to lead with what we have butour competitor has more of.So we haveto appreciate our company’s capability to execute in relation to its competitors.Which also means that we need tounderstand what we can execute in themarketplace and what our competitorscan and cannot do.
Gatorade’s Branding Story
Gatorade represents an example ofabrand that has successfully evolvedstrategy from tactics.Gatorade got itscommercial start by selling products tocollege teams.It was all its resources,market development and productdevelopment (remember the powderedform?) would allow.Outstanding colle-giate athletes and coaches eventually found their way to the professionalranks and so did Gatorade.When the Quaker Oats Company took over ownership ofGatorade,itdrove long-term relationships withorganized support teams and associa-tions.It also had the capability todevelop product and drive retail distri-bution to broaden availability.WhenCoca-Cola,with its PowerAde,andPepsiCo,with its All Sport,entered themarket (which Gatorade created),nei-ther could make a meaningful dentagainst the brand,given its impenetra-ble position with organized support,sound product and retail strength.
Building on Past Successes
Quaker Oats Company was able to buildupon previous brand successes with thecompany’s tactical capabilities.As such,they were able,over time,to immunizeconsumers against the entry and muscleofcola giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.More important,neither ofthese twocompanies could achieve success by play-ing the same game as Gatorade.Now,with PepsiCo’s acquisition ofGatorade,the brand has even more capabilities andtactics at its disposal and,with them,agreater degree ofstrategic freedom.In summary,tactics precede strategy in those cases when we need to gain anappreciation ofwhat we are capable of executing and thus achieving.Anexamination ofpotential tactics revealsthe degree ofstrategic freedom open toour brand versus the competition.
Richard Czerniawski and Mike Maloney are princi-pals of Brand Development Network International.For more information, call 847-256-8820. Learnmore at AMA’s 2005 Corporate BrandingConference, at www.amanet.org.
Diplomatic Strategiesfor Managing Conflict
effective responsesto any resistance.Rehearse your pre-sentation with anassociate,ifpossible.Have written docu-mentation to sup-port key aspects of  your proposal.
Present your idea concisely.
Youwill not have ages to convince people.Senior executives’time is valuable,and their attention spans are short.If  you can’t convince them in five to sevenminutes,you probably will neverconvince them.Iftheir interest growsand they have more questions,thediscussion will go beyond your antici-pated time.
The Portable Mentor 
by Cy Charney is published byAMACOM, AMA’s book publishing division. Formore information about this book and other AMAbooks, visit www.amacombooks.org.For more insights into influencing executive man-agement, check out AMA’s leadership and manage-ment seminars at www.amanet.org/seminars.
Having great ideascan prove frustratingifyou don’t knowhow to sell them tosomeone who has thepower to approveimplementation.Here are some tipsfrom Cy Charney,author of 
The Portable Mentor,
to per-suade those above you to accept yourideas:
Prepare thoroughly before you meet.
The more important and controversialthe idea,the more you need to prepare.Be frank with yourself.Do you really care about the issue? Can you projectenthusiasm? Ifnot,be realistic about theoutcome.
Get as many backup facts as you can.
Your opinion is more important to youthan it is to others.The more data youhave,the more rational you can be andthe greater will be your influence.
Anticipate senior management’sreaction to your proposal.
Prepare
Influencing Senior Management
When faced with a business communica-tion barrier,consider and isolate the coreproblem.Here are five steps to start with.
1. Look at the personalities involved.
Identify ifthe problem is personality-or situational-based.
2.Identify the type of conflict andthe barrier.
Determine the underlyingissues and impacting influences.Evaluate your own role in the conflict.
3.Break down differing goals.
Whilegoals do not need to be entirely in sync,finding points ofagreement is the opti-mal approach.
4.Examine the ethics involved.
Takethe path ofpreserving the respect anddignity ofthe other person.
5.Evaluate the circumstances.
Determine whether there are extenuat-ing circumstances creating the conflict.Give others the benefit ofthe doubt if  you are not sure.
For more insights from AMA’s popular seminar“How to Communicate with Diplomacy, Tact andCredibility,” visit www.amanet.org/seminars.
 
Don’t Make theWrong Hiring Decision
With all the talk about a labor shortage, you may be tempted to hire the firstwarm body that comes with some expe-rience.Don’t.Prepare a list ofquestionsto ask each candidate that will identify his or her strengths and weaknesses.Here are some sample questions:
What aspects ofyour previous jobsgave you the most trouble?
What were some ofthe disappoint-ments you had in your last job?
In what areas did you need help orguidance from your manager?
For what things have your man-agers complimented you? Criticized you?One final bit ofadvice:Ifyou feelthat an applicant is holding somethingback in answer to a question,don’t askfurther questions.Rather,be quiet.Youwill be surprised at how often an appli-cant will fill in the silence with some-thing—positive or negative—that addsto the response.
From
The Manager’s Question and Answer Book 
by Florence M. Stone. For more informationabout this and other AMA book titles, visitwww.amacombooks.org. For more help, see AMA’s“Recruiting, Interviewing and Selecting Employees”seminar at www.amanet.org/seminars.
 American Management Association
Executive Matters
All Managers Must Think StrategicallyTo Be Successful
You want to empower your staff.To doso,as the background for your empow-erment effort,you need to create a cul-ture ofsupport.To that end,considerthe following:
Listen to your employees’ ideas.
More important,determine how tomake them work.
Demonstrate trust in your employees.
Ifyou behave as ifyou expect them todo their jobs to the best oftheir abili-ties,they will go that extra mile toexceed expectations.
Give your staff the real picture, not“corporatespeak.”
They need to beinformed ifthey are to make the rightdecisions when empowered to do so.
Help employees balance work andpersonal demands.
Recognize that youremployees have lives beyond the office.Working long hours may occasionally be called for,but it should not be a mea-sure ofperformance or a requirement.
Offer opportunities for lifelong learn-ing.
The more trained,the more ableempowered employees are to assumegreater authority.
Foster open communications.
Show your employees that you consider your-selfand them a part ofa team—whichmeans you will share all you hear fromsenior management when you can do so.
Encourage reasonable risk.
Letemployees know they will not be penal-ized for taking calculated chances thatfail.Don’t only say it—mean it andprove that by your actions when mis-takes occur.Rather than rant when amistake is made,analyze it with theemployee to avoid a recurrence.
Foster autonomy.
Make recommen-dations instead ofissuing commands.Better,when an employee comes to youwith a question,ask the employee howhe or she would handle the problem.If the solution has shortcomings,discussthem with the employee to find ways toshore up his or her solution.Getting anemployee to think for himselfor herself is critical to empowerment.
Praise successes.
When your employ-ees meet or exceed expectations,recog-nize that fact in public.Ideally,acknowl-edge behavior that leads to attainmentoforganization goals.You want to rein-force behavior aligned to corporatestrategic objectives.
For more insights into empowerment and dele-gation check AMA’s management seminars atwww.amanet.org/seminars.
Create a Culture of Empowerment
Strategic planning isusually considered thedomain ofsenior man-agers.But all managersneed to think and actstrategically so that they can impact the futurerather than be impactedby it.The steps you musttake to develop a planare as follows:
Step 1: Plan to plan.
You need to knowwhat support you will need from thoseabove and below and from your peers.Ofparticular concern is the answer tothe following question:To what extentwill you have to involve the people whomust help you implement your plan?
Step 2: Develop a mission.
Your divi-sion’s or department’s mission shouldreflect the corporate mission.Workwith your team to develop a statementofwhat you do daily—one that is easily understood and is fairly specific since itwill prompt goal setting.
Step 3: Evaluate your present situa-tion.
Don’t limit yourselfto a review of  your organization’s mission statement.Benchmark your organi-zation against its counter-part in other companiesin your industry.
Step 4: Identify indica-tors to track yourprogress.
Think about thekinds ofgoals you will besetting.Now,what indica-tors will help you deter-mine ifyou are succeed-ing in achieving these objectives? Theindicators should be easy to collect or,better yet,are already being collected.
Step 5: Set goals.
Your goals shouldbe SMART;that is,they should be spe-cific,measurable,agreed-upon,realisticand time-specific.
Step 6: Develop plans.
The plansshould enable you to achieve your goals.For plans to be achieved in the next 12months,list all actions,who’ll do themand their due dates.Ifyou need helpfrom other parts ofthe organization,identify those whose support you’ll need.
For more insights into planning, check out AMA’sstrategic and operational planning seminars atwww.amanet.org/seminars.
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