Tactical gets a bad rap. Period.
Hip business books always like to push for Strategic over Tactical, inferring that tactical is a band aid crisis mode response. However if we draw off Military and Law Enforcement, we could make a strong case that Tactical sits over Strategic and is even better because it covers the high level planning down to the operational level.
Tactical operations require a high level of SA (situational awareness) – I would put to you that most businesses wish that their employee’s were more aware of their strategy, like a member(operator) of a SWOT team on a mission. Tactical planning creates strategic plans AND rolls them out at an operator level – all the way back to the after action reporting/debrief. In the coming weeks I will be fleshing this concept out further here on the site. Bottom line is you might want to start considering Tactical in a whole new light; cool books aside.
Eric J Helzer is a member of AIPMM!