The citation of USAF Col. John R Boyd, Korea veteran, creator of F15 and F16, and teacher at US Marines War College defines strategy. Boyd created his theory of strategy after having studied 2500 years of human conflicts.
The Boyd theory is applicable not only to military conflicts, but to all human conflicts, and that make the theory useable to us who lead teams and develop new products.
Strategy can be divided into separate levels, or strata. Edward Luttwak (one of the 20th Century giants) gives five strata with increasing complexity: 1/ Technology, 2/ Tactics, 3/ Operations, 4/ Theater of war operations, and 5/ Grand strategy.
The highest level is purely political and therefore strategy theory helps us understand international politics. It is not difficult to transform this to a company doing business on the competitive international arena.
The study of strategy has always been considered important. As early as 400 BC Sun Tzu wrote, "it is a question of life and death" (for a nation) in his famous book Art of War. Sun Tzu was a brilliant strategist who fought 28 battles with 27 wins and one undecided. If we to enemies add environmental pollution, extinction of species, etc, then the importance of strategy is larger than ever before.
One of the greatest sword fighters of all time, Miyamoto Musashi wrote in his Go Rin No Sho, book of five rings, about the significance of time and rhythm in strategy. Musashi´s book has been a guiding star to Japanese industrial leaders.
