Strategy and innovation. At the highest level, how similar they are. It is not just wordplay to say that good strategy is inherently innovative and that powerful innovation is inherently strategic. There are many correspondences. Both strategy and innovation are abstractions. They exist in the realm of thought, and they share a similar orientation. They attempt to perceive the world as it really is, but that is just the starting point.

Both of them are hypothetical. They start with the question: What if? And they are experimental. Like the scientific method, they start with a hypothesis that results in an experiment—an action to see what results will follow. This generates feedback loops. That is how one learns. Strategists and innovators are always learning, often in unusual ways. Somehow they keep their minds clear.

To get more tangible, let’s consider people who are either great strategists or great innovators. First off, they are rare—and unusual. They tend to be contrarians, going against the herd. There is a basic reason for this. They are blessed—or cursed—with an unusual perspective. They are often outsiders who don’t quite belong. This contributes to their objectivity. Napoleon was the “little corporal” from provincial Corsica. Genghis Khan was from an outcast family who lived on the fringe of a nomadic society. This helps them not to take accepted wisdom for granted.

In the time of the Wright brothers, many of the world’s best scientists were certain that manned flight was impossible, but the brothers watched birds fly and came up with ingenious wind-tunnel experiments to tease out principles that led to the modern airplane wing. All brilliant strategies in war or business contain the element of surprise. Competitors are never ready for them, because they go against the grain of conventional wisdom.

Contrary to the usual principles of war, Napoleon didn’t care about objectives on the ground; he only wanted to win battles. His troops were mobile and would withdraw at the last moment if he sensed that the odds of winning were reduced. Win enough battles and you take the ground, almost by default.

Henry Ford conceived a new marketplace: the new generation of blue-collar workers who could afford to buy a modest automobile. Before that, only rich folks could buy a car, and there were hundreds of car companies manufacturing expensive vehicles for them. Ford imagined a new market that did not yet exist. This was both innovative

from a product viewpoint and strategic from a competitive viewpoint.

These individuals possess a deep logic and a sense of openness that allow for pattern recognition. They detect signals that point to a new or hidden structure. Call it intuition, although I have never heard a good definition of the word. They tend to have a sense of history, at least in their chosen fields, but are rarely at the head of the class. They spend too much time looking out the window, wondering: What if? Einstein was never the quickest guy when it came to solving textbook problems, but he was the only one who wondered what the world would look like if he was riding a beam of light.

There is a related issue: leadership. Both strategy and innovation are inherently creative processes—processes that lead in new directions. Leadership is always there, almost by definition. Keep in mind that there are many types of leadership. It is a quality that has many forms. Strategists and innovators have a quality of leadership that is hard to describe. One often hears the term “vision.” This metaphor is overrated, in my view. It implies a complete picture of some idealized situation or future. This may indeed be the case, but it is secondary.

I agree with Brian Bacon of the Oxford Leadership Academy when he says that the key to leadership is a strong sense of purpose. It doesn’t have to be a complete picture, or even put into words. When you are with one of these people, you can feel it. It emanates from them like a personal force field. In The New

New Thing, Michael Lewis described engineer/entrepreneur Jim Clark, who founded Silicon Graphic Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp., as a man walking in a dark tunnel, gradually moving faster and attracting followers as he went. His vision was blurry at best, but everyone knew he was going somewhere.

In retrospect we have learned that the economic policies of Pierre Elliot Trudeau were often misguided and counterproductive, and yet he provided a mix of strategy, innovation, and leadership that Canada craved at that time. He fit the turmoil of the times and allowed us to reflect on our own identity. He was a little man with a huge sense of purpose, and he made us proud to be Canadian.

Stephen Harper is a much better economist, but he is a mechanic. In his prime, Trudeau was more like the host of a great dinner party. When you left, you knew your life was richer for the experience.