Alongside me is Francine Jansen, Strategy Advisor for ‘Herbert R. Sim’ brand; along with other projects such as WardrobeTrendsFashion and Crypto Chain University.
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You might not realise, but real life is a game of strategy. There are some fun mini-games – like dancing, driving, running, and etc – but the key to being successful in what you aim to do or achieve is simply managing your resources.
It is interesting to note that many or even most successful people that I have across in life put their time into the right things, but not without much thought. Later in life, other things comes into play, but your top priority should always be mastering where your time goes.
If you asked me what I do, I’d probably give you a nondescript answer and get on to more interesting topics. Fact is, I “do” a lot of different things. This whole “What do you do?” question is a relic from an earlier era, before it was possible to “do” 30 different things. Hence why I need someone as a reminder for me to stay in the path I’m currently travelling at any given point in time – a strategist.
When I say I that I have a “strategist,” I’m usually met with either a blank stare or the question, “What does a strategist do?” It is a fair question; the title is pretty broad.
You need to position yourself in the right way. The T-shaped people metaphor is still with us to this day, but it can be pretty career limiting. A better way to think of your ‘positioning’ is to ask yourself, what is the thing I am uniquely qualified to do that no one else can? Senior folks appreciate people with “strong beliefs, loosely held”. Having a strategist puts everything into perspective.
I think plenty of people will look at a strategist and think, “hey, I have plenty of skills and I don’t need a strategist to point those out to me. I understand it completely myself”.
Arguably, so much so every single person specialising in their area of expertise would also claim that understanding people is key to their profession and they can do it on their own without having a strategist.
Strategists think about what knowledge about people they can leverage to create brand activations or communication that will get the right product in the hands of the right people, and deliver value to both an individual and/or the individual’s business.
That also begs the question, is it easier or harder to understand people these days? Easier with so much more data than ever before, but definitely harder when trying to separate fact from fiction. And infinitely harder when anyone can reframe just about any fact according to whatever narrative they need to fit it into.