In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, many worry that by the time a strategy is built, the world will have already moved on and the strategy itself will be outdated before it’s even launched. Many articles explore the idea that the pace of change has outpaced the discipline of strategy—though (spoiler alert) they always circle back around to reaffirm the necessity of strategy.
“Our strategy was great, but the team never implemented it properly.” “Our strategy was just too far ahead of its time, and the market wasn’t ready.” “Our strategies would have performed super well in the market, if only the Board would have authorized the resources we needed.” Heard anything like that before? ☝️
I recently posted about times NOT to do strategy. TL;DR: When you’re not actually ready to change anything, you shouldn’t be doing strategy. A lot of folks found that helpful. Some others, though, asked me: “If these aren’t the right moments, what are the right moments?”
As a strategist, one of the pieces of advice I give most often is: stop doing strategy. Let me be clear: this is not the preamble to a bullsh*tty sales pitch. I’m not trying to tell you that you can’t do strategy on your own—that you just NEED my services, because I do strategy in a way that they can’t.
Meetings are interesting. Especially the boring ones. When I say “interesting,” I don’t mean literally interesting. Not most meetings, anyway. Most meetings are absolutely dreadful.
