Has anyone ever asked you to be more strategic? Heres what that meansStrategy for beginners, how Starbucks lost its soul, and a food safety pointer (Issue #274)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter4 min readJust now--Being told you need to be more strategic is common feedback for senior engineers, writes CTO and technical advisor Dan Pupius on Medium. (He was Mediums Head of Engineering a decade ago.)Its a phrase Ive heard a lot throughout my career, and its usually thrown around without a precise definition. The gist seems to be to work smarter, not harder, but its unclear how to apply that phrase to the messiness of inbound emails and Slacks, some of which might simply require hard work.For some background, I dug through the Medium archive and found this story by product designer Stephanie Irwin. Irwin draws a clear distinction between a plan and a strategy. A plan is basically a to-do list, but a strategy is a set of choices that position you in a way to win. Or, in the words of Pupius, strategy is a framework that guides decision making. If youre doing it right, youll have defined your priorities in advance, giving yourself permission to say no to work that doesnt serve your goals.And if youre not strategic? As Irwin explains, You may feel incredibly busy, yet months pass and that dream or goal you have still hasnt happened.Pupiuss example: Youre an engineer whose product seems to be getting buggier (thats not great) and you want to catch issues before they hit production. An easy, not-super-strategic solution? Simply add more tests and/or a manual QA phase. A better, more strategic path: End-to-end automated tests of critical user flows. This gives you a framework for understanding what kinds of tests you want to add, and how youll prioritize them.For a far deeper dive into the decades (centuries, even!) of meaning hidden behind that be more strategic comment you might hear during a performance review, I recommend spending some time with Roger Martins Medium archive. Hes written a book on this topic (Playing to Win) and, in this brief history, traces business strategy all the way back to a 1911 Harvard Business School course on military strategy. In both military and business contexts, as Martin points out, the art is to achieve a sense of equilibrium (peace, basically) between yourself and your competitors. You want to get your desired positioning and have your competitors largely satisfied with theirs to create as positive-sum a game as circumstances allow. Harris Sockel Your responses to our newsletter about third places (and Starbucks)Last Thursday, we sent a newsletter about Starbucks attempt to reclaim its position as Americas go-to coffee shop and third place (a zone of connectedness and community between work and home). Many of you responded thoughtfully, on both Starbucks business prospects (its not doing well lately) and the importance of third places. Here are a few responses that stood out to us:I lived in Seattle when Starbucks was in its early days. It still had a 3rd Place vibe then, but I had a front seat to the changes. IMHO, the two biggest things Starbucks did to ruin the brand:1) Replace skillful baristas with push-button, automated espresso machines, eliminating the art and know-how of pulling espresso. This created an army of fake baristas and removed the craft from the coffee. []2) Centralized and standardized food offerings. This is the biggest reason I tend to avoid Starbucks. Their food looks anemic, generic, and totally unappealing. In the old days, they contracted with local bakeries and vendors and had quality items that varied somewhat among stores. Now, it all comes in shrink-wrapped from a central hub.[] As with so many businesses they let efficiency and the bean counters steer decisions that have impacted their brand for the worse. A. WyattTrying to reclaim the community/coffeehouse vibe is a big lift for a corporation whose actions have consistently degraded that experience over the years. Actions need to align with that aspiration and should be directed within first. Get your house in order before inviting company over. Improving the barista experience will improve the customer experience. R. A. Jones Some practical wisdomFood expiration dates are confusing because theres no national system. A rule of thumb someone should have taught me in elementary school: Use by is a safety threshold (dont cross it unless youve frozen the item beforehand); Best before is a quality threshold (fine to cross if youre okay sacrificing flavor or texture).