As any sound management and organizational improvement advice should be, this nugget is simple and straightforward: When it comes to plotting your organization’s strategic direction: It’s not brain surgery, but it is rocket science.

You’re asking yourself, undoubtedly, one of two questions at this point: What’s the difference?  Or, What the heck is he talking about?

Here’s my answer:

Rocket science has been billed to be this mystical, high-level undertaking which, at its core, fundamentally involves trying to create a bomb that propels rather than destroys.  The science is to experiment by blowing things up until you get it right – sending a rocket into orbit instead of oblivion.

Brain surgery, on the other hand, essentially requires getting it right the first time.  Failure is not an option.  Thus the approach to perfecting this science is conceptually much different.

Management science is much more akin to developing rockets.  While no one sets out to fail, it’s not the end of the world if you do…especially if you take lessons from that failure and apply them towards a more successful attempt next time.

Too many executives approach their organization’s strategic direction as though they were performing brain surgery, rather than encouraging rocket science.  As a result, they get bogged down trying to perfect something that really only can improve through application – including a bit of trial and necessary error.  Worse, these same executives try to plan (and often execute) their strategy without ever talking to or involving their people on the ground.  The folks in the trenches are the real scientists who hypothesize, test, and observe the results of strategic implementation, and thereby the strategy itself.

What’s usually missing – at least as I recall my basic science methodology – is recording all of the data: the hypothesis, the experiment/test, the observations.  These contain the very knowledge that makes up a significant percentage of the overall valuation of today’s organizations.  In fact, the Human Capital Institute refers to the current S&P 500 valuation formula as assigning 80% of an organization’s value as being comprised of intangible assets, which include components such as knowledge, creativity and innovation.

Commenting on the significance that this shift from tangible to intangible assets has on the concerns of the modern organization, Steve Jobs of Apple is reported to have said, while looking into the corporate parking lot from his office window, that Apple’s principal assets get in their cars and drive home at the end of the day – and that he feared that they may not come back.  Because most organizational leaders recognize this as true, they are compelled to do something about it.  All too often, they take a brain surgeon’s approach, attempting to map each element with pinpoint accuracy, and make adjustments with laser-guided precision.

A better way is to determine what your critical knowledge is, actively record it, and develop systems through which it is maintained, cultivated and applied by as many people as possible.  Simple, yet based in science.  Rocket science.  Something you’ll need to add to your repertoire if you intend to remain competitive.  Because in a flat world, there isn’t enough time to learn brain surgery.