Culture beats strategy. Unless strategy clubs culture over the head with a phonebook-size Powerpoint™ Deck, first.

Gautam Ghosh sagely points out in comments:

It is mostly that the "hows" get drowned by the "whats"...which is where 'strategic planning' eclipses 'engaging the people' and what that results in is that the 'plan' remains in bound folders and nobody cares what it says!

And, the inestimableJohnnie Moore:

This echoes my own mantra of relationships before ideas. Many organisations fixate on their explicit strategy, usually encapsulated in formidable documents. The more detailed they make it, the more likely that people won't really digest it and they mistake a tired acquiescence for consent. Generally, the author(s) of the strategy get an illusory sense of control from their document, but that may be all.[My emphasis]

Yeah. I hear that some old English guy summed it up thus: ...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. --MacBeth

(Uhh. On second thought, I may have a new Fouro tagline.)

Put the above in simple terms and in many ways it says: "passion beats a plan." That's important, I think, in increasing measure because plans now truly do seem to last only as long as it takes the ink to dry. But, as even the Army is now finding out, flexibility, bricolage, and confidence in the face of uncertain, evolving circumstances--not a fatter training manual--is the ultimate survival tool--for battlefield or business. Phil Carter's intel-dump leads us to a report on just such a thing, from retired LTC Leonard Wong, PhD:

"Today's junior officers are not afraid to lead in ambiguous conditions. They can execute a mission with minimal guidance. They are an incredibly valuable resource to a transforming Army that has desired and sought adaptive capacity in its leaders. The crucible of OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] has delivered to the Army a cohort of adaptive leaders. The challenge for the Army is to encourage and leverage this priceless potential." Source: Developing Adaptive Leaders: The Crucible of Operation Iraqi Freedom

Well gee whiz. Funny thing about heat, it melts you, makes you brittle, or anneals you. One of the old saws of military command & control is that "the first casualty of contact with the enemy is your plan." If you think about it, the same often applies in business. Planning is what we do when there's not much to do. It's also often so much quasi-educated guessing. We earn our money when the stuff hits the fan or when opportunity knocks. Experience, skill, intuition takes over. It's the zone that David Maister describes when surveying his Professional Services leaders and executive clients: only 20% of what they do, and for only 20% of their clients, makes them feel engaged, challenged and worthwhile. In other words, they really feel useless and obstructed 80% of the time. (A/K/A: Punching in or punching walls.) And these are six-figure-plus executives, with supposed "power" over their destinies.

The challenge for the Army is to encourage and leverage this priceless potential.

What Phil Turner, via Dr. Wong, describes as an Army learning to come to grips with non-state, non-traditional aggression and extra-doctrinal challenges--the suddenly malleable and explosive nature of its mission--is really an Army attempting to come to grips with another truth, yet again: Sergeants and Lieutenants and Captains fight and win wars. But they often do so with one hand tied behind their back--string leading back to HQ--and the other, toting a huge manual on "How things ought to be but never really are."

Sound familiar?

Localized control and decision-making. Adaptability and amenabilty to new input. A disdain for dogma. Getting out of our own way. Yes, the average Sergeant and Lieutenant thrives in the same environment your mid-level reports dream of, or bug you for. Incoming!