This book aims to bridge a broadly applicable and validated theory and the practical challenges that face any individual acting in the face of a power imbalance. It underpins the practical advice with a detailed sociology of action of the phenomenon known as strategy. The only thing required to use this strategy is some capacity for abstract thought for planning a strategy and some self-awareness and discipline for implementing it. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the possibilities available to the strategist, and provides a simple method of developing a strategy.
About Laure Paquette
Laure Paquette, Ph.D., is an expert in strategy from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. She helps people get what they want, especially when they have no power and no money. Prof. Paquette has lectured and conducted research in 23 countries. She has published books on strategy, tactics, NATO and Pacific Rim security issues, strategic activism, election campaign strategy, strategic change in health care systems, bio-terrorism, and counterinsurgency. She has also written plays and is working on a novel. She speaks English and French. She can be reached at laure.paquette@lakeheadu.ca, and maintains a web page and writing, reading, and research blogs.
Helping People Get What They Want, Especially Underdogs
Underdogs don't think like those with power of any kind - military, political or economic. Dr. Laure Paquette has developed a revolutionary new way of structuring, explaining, analyzing and teaching strategy, focusing on what the underdog needs to succeed over the strong, and how the underdog thinks when dealing with the powerful. The system can be used in a wide range of applications and environments and is geared to participants from all walks of life, and with different learning styles.
Dr. Paquette's hands-on approach to strategy can be used by individuals, small groups or large organizations, using checklists and forms, as well as hands-on exercises. It can easily be adapted to a wide range of applications and environments. Sessions can be as short as 90 minutes, or can span over several days - whatever you need, whatever your available schedule.
Some of the tools evolved from Dr.Paquette's research are a set of exercises, using simple board games, to quickly spot people in any group who have an easier time thinking strategically. The exercises focus on teaching participants to:
* develop "think ahead" and "multiple what-if" skills;
* develop the ability to predict outcomes in increasing numbers of different scenarios;
* practice the steps of strategy development and analysis using case studies; and
* distill broad approaches into a single core concept, and use it in achieving goals.
During the exercises, the approach is to start with simple tasks, then making the tasks more and more complicated and difficult until rational thought alone isn't enough to deal with the situation.
The aim of the process is to teach or draw out the ability to predict outcomes in an increasing number of scenarios, and the ability to better think ahead - the attributes of natural strategists, able to understand underdog strategy, and put themselves in that position.
