Are You a Strategist or an Operator?

I know it&#x27;s supposed to be a metaphor, but here&#x27;s my take on the actual American warriors.<p>1. Ernest King -&gt; great strategist. Would have probably been great operator too.<p>2. Chester Nimitz -&gt; the greatest strategist of them all (George Washington included). Midway was obviously his moment of glory, but his second most brilliant action of the war was the sacking of Admiral Ghormley, which lead more or less to the decisive victory of Guadalcanal, from which point the war was won on autopilot.<p>3. Bill (Bull) Halsey -&gt; great operator (greater than Patton). Questionable strategist.<p>4. Raymond Spruance -&gt; great strategist and also great operator.<p>On the army side, I&#x27;m not that familiar, but I&#x27;d venture and call George Marshall as a really great strategist and obviously Eisenhower also a great strategist. Patton was a great operator, and questionable strategist, similar to Bull Halsey.

I would overall agree with this, tbh, and having an understanding of this makes my work place tick.<p>Our team lead - a real strategist - can take very abstract company goals, of &quot;reduce cost, and increase profit, but mostly be more efficient with your costs&quot; and turn them.. I think one step more concrete: &quot;Can we finish projects to stop renting servers, or do we have simple projects that could increase utilization of systems we pay for?&quot;<p>And suddenly some operator is like &quot;Oh yeah, if we could get Team X to do Y, I could shift load around and end up losing 1&#x2F;3 of the systems I need for Team X&quot;.<p>And then it&#x27;s back to the strategist to figure out if the amount of manpower necessary is worth the reduced overall cost. And maybe we do, or maybe we dont.

I like this question as a broad approach to life and careers. They really are different skills sets.<p>Trying to apply the paradigm to knowledge work is tricky. I&#x27;m an operator by title and trade. Best I can tell, someone can ride the operator title all the way up to exec levels. Unfortunately, as you rise in an org the high level Operator is really just a strategist managing other operators.<p>&quot;Is the benefit in money and status worth the tradeoff in fulfillment that comes from doing a job you’re brilliant at and love? It’s okay to recognize that you like carrying out orders more than formulating them. And it’s okay to value the chance to practice the things you’re really skilled at more than a bigger office. &quot;<p>It&#x27;s a tension for me. I enjoy doing the work to keep a company up and running. But pay growth is tied to managing people and &quot;multiplying impact&quot;.<p>I understand many Engineering orgs have split IC&#x2F;Manager tracks. I&#x27;ve never seen the same thing in Support, Business Operations, or Analyst type roles.

Interesting that this article positions the operator as more &quot;sexy&quot; than the strategist. Most writing seems to go the opposite way that being a high level manager (Director +) is the more desirable role.

Great article, thanks for posting.<p>Applies to so much in life!