Strategy Innovators™
Effect-Based Strategy Overview
Effects-Based Case Analogy: A question arose in Northern California as to why beachfront property had started to erode so severely. After some investigation, it turned out the reason had to do with over fishing of pollock, a species of fish from the same Northern Pacific waters. How did this connect?
With fewer pollock in the waters, the seal population declined. Without enough seals to eat, hungry killer whales started to eat sea otters in the kelp beds. With a decline in sea otter populations, the population of sea urchins exploded. Hungry sea urchins ate the kelp beds that served as a natural barrier to temper the force of the waves. Without the kelp beds, the waves hit the Northern California shore at full force with the attendant erosion.
Traditional strategists would tend to look at the problem of beach erosion just one or two levels deep and propose to shore up the beaches with the importation of sand, construction of jetties, or the creation of some other barrier to stop the erosion. Effects-based strategists would zero in on that point of the whole chain of events that is easiest to affect in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Perhaps, they would determine that it is far cheaper to subsidize some pollock fisherman not to fish for a few seasons than to undergo massive beachfront reclaiming projects if the beaches continue to erode.
Making effects-based strategy work is an art. Currently, the military makes the most obvious use of it. You start with an intended strategic effect and determine what is the fastest, most effective, and most efficient way to accomplish that desired strategic effect. For example, why destroy tanks in a battlefield where they have the most advantage when if you destroy the rails that transport the tanks or the fuel that makes the tanks run, you efficiently accomplish the same strategic effect? Why also risk ten aircraft to destroy ten bridges if sending one aircraft to destroy one bridge will keep enemy tanks off your battlefield just as well, plus leave 9 other aircraft available to attack other targets in the mean time?
Effects based strategies appear in business as well. With them, Microsoft defeated Sega without fighting Sega in the market. The Blair Witch Project became the most profitable movie in history. Toyota successfully launched a full sized pickup truck against the last fortress of American automotive dominance held by Ford, GM, and Chrysler. See Slide Show.
Effects-based strategies go to the heart of a problem and eliminate it at its source. Applied to business, effects-based strategies allow you to sell more of your goods faster, more efficiently, and with fewer sales people than you might have ever thought possible. Effect-based strategies allow you to protect more intellectual property faster, more effectively, and with fewer resources than you might have ever thought possible. In short, effects-based strategies allow you to compete in a way that will “shock and awe” your more traditionally thinking competitors. Strategy Innovators™ can show you how.