Quality is not a strategy. Books, strategic planning websites, and executives may all provide numerous examples to the contrary, but quality is simply not a strategy. Nor is process improvement. Nor productivity gains. Nor employee development. Nor improved marketing. Even growth is rarely a strategy. If these are typical outcomes of your strategy formulation, your operational focus is overpowering your strategic thinking. You are caught up in the “how,” particularly, the “how well,” and thinking too little about the “what” – what kind of value can you offer and what kind of organization could you become. You can’t expect significant gains by mostly doing the same old things a little better.

If quality is a strategic choice, than poor quality would be the alternative strategic choice. And that makes no sense. Poor quality means that you are not living up to customer expectations. Your products may be disappointing, your delivery slow, or your service incompetent or unfriendly. It is an operational term related to the company’s ability to deliver the anticipated value. High quality is an operational success; poor quality is an operational failure. Poor quality as a strategic decision is a decision to be in business for a very short time. Quality is simply not a strategy.

Value offered, on the other hand, is a strategic choice. Value is what customers are willing to pay for. The higher the perceived value, the more they are willing to pay. We all know this. We pay extra for time-saving options, reputable brands, special styling, and more. If we don’t see the value, we turn to unknown brands, fewer options, and basic colors. But in all cases, we expect the product to meet our expectations.

For example, even a cheap, no-brand hedge clipper is supposed to cut the hedge when we first bring it home. However, if the blade chips and the action seizes after only one season, we are disappointed but not terribly surprised since we did not choose to pay for durability by buying the brand known for durability. The next time we purchase a hedge clipper, we will decide the extent to which we value durability and choose accordingly.

Both the cheap, no-brand and the big-name hedge clipper companies make a strategic decision when they decide how much their customers value durability. Once they make this decision, they need to deliver a product as durable as promised. If the durable clipper lasts only as long as the no-brand clipper, either the durable clipper company has a quality problem, or the no-brand clipper is offering similar value and simply beating them on price.

The first is an operational problem, the second a strategic problem. The difference is important because your strategy won’t succeed if it is sabotaged by operational problems such as poor quality, and you can’t solve the strategic problem (a competitor offering the same value for less) by improving operations with a quality initiative.

“Focus on the Customer” and “World-class Customer Service,” variations on the quality theme, may also sound like familiar strategic objectives. But these are just vague, worthless proclamations that could be used by almost any business regardless of strategy.

But maybe there is a strategic component in your intentions. Maybe you provide a competitive, but not outstanding, product in your target market. And maybe you believe your only and best strategic advantage must come from providing intangible value in every interaction with your customer. In other words, you decide that your best shot at succeeding in your business is to build customer loyalty by being friendlier, more helpful, more determined, more convenient, more proactive, more whatever you can think of, than your competition. If that is the case, then you have made a strategic decision and I hope you can communicate that to your employees with more specificity and urgency than either of the insipid statements above.

Determining what the customer values and deciding what value to offer customers is a strategic choice, one of the most important strategic choices you will make. Protect your strategy and strengthen your ability to execute by avoiding confusion between strategic decisions – the stakes in the sand – and the on-going operational decisions that will continuously evolve your ability to deliver that value well and satisfy your customers.