I went for a haircut today and had an interesting discussion with the person cutting my hair. She was unhappy and frightened. Why? It came down to the fact that she watched CNN. She had a perfectly good life, a good husband, a job, no financial real worries, but she was certain she was worse off than any previous generation of human with global warming, the economy, the war in Iraq, and a million other things that were not a part of her life, but on television. I explained to her that the news media makes their money by scaring people and that she had to factor that in.

People commonly make strategic mistakes by fighting on the wrong battleground. For example, assuming neither Democratic candidate blows it completely, neither can win enough votes in the primaries to secure the nomination. This means that the real battleground is now in the political back-rooms. The Democratic super-delegates have a problem and Hillary is trying to solve it for them by clever positioning. Though Obama will likely be the leader in the delegates count, he has shown weakness in all the battleground states.

One of my projects for the next year is to collect as many examples, primarily business examples, of good and bad strategy. Stories that illustrate the lessons of positioning, unity, focus, innovation, and so on. The problem with most "news" reports is that they are little more than press releases for large corporations: focusing on products, deals, and the moment rather than anything meaningful about strategy. Off of the top of my head, I only know of one television that portrays the application of good strategy as it should be.

No one succeeds without first surviving defeat. Before making a move, you have to consider what happens next, both if the move succeeds and if it fails. The Aim step of the Progress cycle selects the best opportunity. That opportunity is the most rewarding if you succeed AND the least costly if you fail. Last year, the New York Giants were eight and eight, losing a key game at the end of the season to miss the playoffs. Google "fire Tom Coughlin" to get a sense of how everyone felt about him at the time. To his credit, the team's owners, John Mara and Steve Tisch, kept Coughlin.

Strategy teaches us to avoid conflict because when you push others, they naturally push back. This sets up a cycle of conflict that naturally escalates if both parties have excess resources. Once started, the process doesn't get anyone closer to their goals. For a good example, we can look at Google and Microsoft. One makes its money in selling advertising via on-line searches. The other makes it money in selling desktop software.