This month a member of the SPS LinkedIn group asked an important question: “Do you see strategy as a profession?”

One member wrote that strategic decision coaching should be regarded as a profession.

Another opined that: “I can’t see what he difference is between ‘Decision Coach’ and ‘Strategist’, except that decision coaching is probably just a part of what the strategist does, thinking, planning, leadership, analysis and several other skills being the other parts of his or her job.”

A different perspective was that some people may be unaware of their credentials as strategists. “As far as prolonged training and a qualification goes, based on my own experience, before becoming a management consultant, I worked as a public sector employee for over 10 years,” the member wrote. “It wasn’t until I became a management consultant that I realised I’d actually been developing strategy for years, without a formal qualification or formal training.”

Feedback on that view was interesting “I think it useful to compare strategy to other management disciplines which are assumed to be professions and compare their characteristics to those of strategy. Having done so I would suggest that strategy has some characteristics of a profession, both other characteristics, arguably fundamental characteristics, are absent.”

Why not join in the debate, with almost 8,000 members of the SPS LinkedIn group.