With increasing frequency I’m encountering misunderstandings about the difference between strategic and tactical. This is bothersome, tiresome, and frustrating. In many ways those are all my problem, since it is unfair to expect civilians to understand military concepts, but the corporate world is filled with military-isms that just evoke an awful lot of face palm from anyone who has served, and this is my current peeve.
Strategy is about long term goals that set your trajectory, tactics are about achieving immediate objectives along that trajectory.
For example, “conduct a campaign of hopping from island to island to incrementally push the Japanese back across the Pacific to force surrender or position for invasion” is a strategy while “assault and hold hill 384 within the next 48 hours” is a tactic. In the business world, the analogous strategy might be “enter this industry vertical to increase revenue and accelerate growth” and a supporting tactic might be “deliver this feature within the next release cycle”.