One of the tenants by which I try to run CollegeRecruiter.com is not to make strategic decisions based upon tactical problems or vice versa. For example, if an employee is taking an lunch break that is too long, don't fire her. The excessive lunch break is comparatively minor and therefore tactical. The termination of an employee is comparatively serious and therefore strategic. Tactical issues tend to be those which most influence an organization in the short-term while strategic tend to have the greatest influence over a long period of time.

Another example would be the auto manufacturers. Just months ago Ford was adamant about shutting down the Ford Ranger light pickup truck manufacturing facility in Saint Paul,Minnesota. By all accounts the product was high quality and so were the workers. But Ford wanted to get rid of the Ranger because they wanted to sell more of the monster pickup trucks from which they could make big margins. That despite Ford's claims that it was an environmentally focused company.

Well, $4 per gallon gas sure turned them around. Now they're talking about expanding the Ranger production because so many buyers of pickup trucks are tired of spending their entire paychecks on the gas it takes to get to and from work. But is the problem confined to Ford? Hardly. Take a good look at the vehicles and advertising coming out of the other manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota, which won't make the fuel efficient Prius in nearly the quantities demanded by the marketplace.

Message to the auto manufacturers: stop trying to solve the strategic environmental and energy problems facing all of us with tactical solutions like advertising and pretending.that you're green when you're anything but. Your customers can smell that nonsense a mile away and the nonsense smells even worse than what is spewing out of the tailpipes coming out of the rear ends of your monster trucks.