Operational vs. Strategic Work
Company leaders are responsible for two types of work: operational and strategic.
Operational Work
Operational work relates to the needs of the business today. It is urgent and obvious.
Things like:
- Have a 1:1 with that direct report
- Recruit for this role
- Retain that angry customer
- Fix this bug
- Respond to all those emails
- And on and on
Strategic Work
Strategic work relates to the future of the business; to projects that will have very little immediate benefit, but could bear massive fruit later. It is not urgent. And there are many possible paths so it is often not obvious which path to commit to.
Things like:
- Develop a new marketing channel
- Expand into a new product category
- Move upmarket or downmarket
- 10x your delivery capacity
- Slash X metric by 50%
- Etc.
Human Psychology
Humans are hard-wired to impulsively do operational work. Strategic work tends to get pushed to "tomorrow". Both are important, but our default is to give strategic work less attention.
HabitStack is designed to elevate strategic work so it gets more attention amidst the bustle of daily operations.