After a quick “meet at my office” text message to Janet and Sam, Alice started walking back to her office.

Along the way, she thought about the meeting she had just finished with Bob. It fit the pattern that Alice had observed with so many clients for competitive intelligence.

First, they were wary about her group before tentatively showing some cautious curiosity. Then, like Bob, they seemed determined to make it clear that they were already doing everything possible to understand and beat the competition. Eventually, every manager asserted that no competitive intelligence group could do better! Finally, confronted by unanswered questions and undesirable results that they knew so well, a few asked for help.

Alice empathized with them. She saw the pressure that they endured and the earnest efforts to succeed. She knew that feeling “stuck” or unsure about how to proceed was an uncomfortable and vulnerable feeling. Over time, Alice had learned to listen calmly to the emotion. The “CI attacks” and challenges were not about her or her team. In fact, she learned to reframe them into a personal request for help. She knew that asking for help takes courage.

Janet and Sam were waiting for Alice in her office.

Bob was feeling the stress. After working late every night for the last two weeks, he was in early this morning. The quiet time for reflection he had hoped for was nowhere to be found as he found himself buried in email, presentation preparation and meetings. As if navigating all of the administrative details was not enough, his product line was not doing very well. And people were noticing. Bob’s boss had scheduled a meeting next week to hear the story of what Bob was going to do about it. Normally Bob welcomed such meetings because he prided himself in being prepared. This time, though, he didn’t know what he was going to say. His competitors really had him reeling.

Knock, knock.

Bob looked up to see Alice at his door. The immediate feeling was irritation. He still had 75 emails to get through before his next meeting! Then he remembered that he had asked for this meeting. Alice was heading up the new Competitive Intelligence team. Maybe she could help him. Maybe she had some clever competition slide he could use with his boss.

“Come in, Alice.”

“Good morning, Bob. How are things going?” Alice asked cheerfully.

Trying to manage a friendly smile but not succeeding, Bob said “Well, not so well if you’re asking about work. I am swamped.”

Alice nodded, “Yes, I’ve heard that your team was under some pressure. But you have been successful for such a long time. I’m sure that you will find solutions. How can I be of service?”

This was painful for Bob. He had been the “hard charger” for so long. Usually he was the one offering help to others.  He looked at Alice for a long moment and then asked, “I heard that you formed some kind of competitive intelligence group. What exactly is that?”

It probably wasn’t until I spent time in Malindi, Kenya, that I got a visceral sense of what it meant to be in the minority. My skin was far lighter, my hair was different and my clothes seemed out of place. I was a “mzungu” (white person). The people were quite kind yet I knew that most of the social adaptations would have to come from me. For a relatively brief time I felt what minorities must feel all the time when they live permanently with people different from themselves.

What does skin color and social background have to do with strategic or tactical thinking?

Only the recognition that the world is dominated by tactical thinking and a strategist will always be in the minority. “Minority thinking” means that most of the time the strategists must adapt to the tacticians rather than the inverse. It does not mean however that strategists are less valuable or needed. And it does not mean that strategy is unimportant. But a strategist that only masters strategic thinking without understanding how to act tactically will most likely fail (or at best succeed sporadically).

The critical implication is that a strategist has a particular requirement to speak two languages. First, there is the native language of strategy. Second, there is the foreign language of the majority that is primarily tactical.

Say something strategic to most tactical people and it would be like a Kenyan saying something in Swahili to me. Aside from “hakuna matata” (no worries) and a few other phrases, I would be lost. Similarly, when strategy encounters a tactical mindset, the strategist faces the likely outcome that they will be misunderstood unless they follow some simple rules.

Here are 5 powerful rules that can help guide a strategist’s behavior and translate their message.

In the never ending quest to define, explain and sell competitive intelligence, we sometimes resort to analogy. When the analogy is a familiar one, maybe our listeners will grasp that key fact that we have thus far struggled to express.

One example that we often use is armed conflict between nations. Wars are the ultimate human competition because the stakes are so high for many people. The problem with using it as analogy for business competitive intelligence is that the rules are clearly different. Ethics in business and war are not the same. Nations may justify actions during war time that an anathema to peace time life.

Another example that we can use is sports. The attractiveness of the sports analogy is that a “lifetime” is played out in plain view each season. All teams start with similar resources and the same record. Pitted against each other in a series of contests, the stronger teams emerge to contend for the title. There, superior systems collide to determine which will prevail. Nice and neat. Then it happens all over again.

Of course, business contests are not all that neat. Plus they usually occur with multiple, simultaneous competitors. The beginning and endings are not so clear cut. And, it is entirely possible that there will be more than one winner.

Okay, despite the caveats, there are good and bad lessons to be learned from American professional football.