Early in my career, I was fortunate to work for Procter & Gamble (P&G), a place where debate was encouraged, critical thinking was expected, and strategy was treated as a discipline, not a document.
It wasn’t until I left the mothership that I realized how rare that mindset actually is.
Many organizations say they have a strategy. They hold off-sites, generate PowerPoints, and publish glossy plans. But when it comes time to make the hard choices that real strategy demands, they hedge.
They keep every option open “just in case.” They try to stretch their people and resources across competing priorities. And then they wonder why nothing changes.
Real Strategy Means Choosing
A real strategy is defined not by what you want, but by what you’re willing to give up to get what you want.
When leadership teams try to preserve the status quo while simultaneously pursuing something new, they dilute both and exhaust their organizations in the process.
If everything is important, nothing is.
Too often, what gets labelled “strategy” is just last year’s operating plan with new headings.
Einstein famously warned that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity. Yet many teams live that reality every year, mistaking motion for progress.
In the race for quarterly results, organizations slap band-aids on structural issues. The numbers may look good on paper, but the underlying problems compound.
Planning for What Could Go Wrong
Good strategy doesn’t ignore risk. It plans for it.
One former client of mine had the courage to enter a new product category. But they overlooked one crucial reality: the R&D for the new product depended on their existing product line generating strong margins.
When those margins slipped, instead of adjusting, they hoped. Within a year, the company collapsed. They hadn’t made a strategic choice. They’d made a strategic wish.
Keep It Simple
Strategy is simple to understand and incredibly difficult to practice because it requires discipline, sacrifice, and courage.
Until an organization chooses and funds the path it believes in, it doesn’t have a strategy. It has hope.
And hope is not a strategy!
