Thank you for this brief perspective, I could recognize the underlying ideas from "Good strategy, bad strategy". Thank you!
I'm of the view that most transformation failures are framed as delivery failures, but they are actually category errors, ie, flaws in how the problem was conceptualized in the first place.
What gets called a "strategy" is often not a strategy at all!
A PowerPoint-shaped hallucination built on false assumptions, flawed taxonomies, third-hand market clichés, and a half-baked plan IS NOT A STRATEGY (but I am nobody to postulate this, admittedly I do not come from a strategy background).
The Greek root of the word "strategy" is "strategos", which does not mean "thinker", but a "wartime general", ie, someone who understood the terrain, the troops, the politics.
Today's equivalents are, in my experience, too often removed from the field. They draw battle plans without scouting the ground.
Tech people are often closer to the ground truth, but lack the mandate to question the gods.
Strategy folks, on the other hand, possess the microphone, but not the diagnostics.
So, the infamous "translation layer" that I like to refer to is not just a space between "two teams", but essentially is the epistemological fault line between fantasy and friction. And the most dangerous errors are not the ones that fail fast, but the ones that quietly metastasize because they are beautifully narrated and poorly interrogated.
With prompt-engineering becoming a thing these days, GPTs are now able to spit out halfway decent "strategies" (or something that can be defined close enough), and the idea itself is no longer the bottleneck.
You can generate ten "growth plays" in 60 seconds, sure, but only one of them can (maybe) survive contact with your org chart, your data model, your change-fatigued workforce.
The ability to filter signal from noise, and the instinct to localize a generic idea into a real context, is becoming scarcer and scarcer.
In this new world, the premium imho shifts to:
- Diagnosing where reality will resist
- Spotting where abstract ambition will rot under the surface tension of real operations
- Knowing what to cut, not just what to add
Put differently: everyone can be a "strategist" now, but few can be editors.
Think of large organizations as ensembles, not machines.
Consultants who thrive in this space are not savants of any one discipline. They are choreographers able to feel timing, mood, resistance. They listen to dissonance and smell misalignment early.
This is not a role that fits in an org chart.
It is an emergent persona: someone who floats between units, "translating" (I keep using this term) abstractions into constraints, constraints into prioritization, and prioritization into political permission.
The job is not to know everything (who does?!)
The job is to know where everyone else is lying to themselves.
It was a beautiful, concise, and most useful articulation of a nebulous term.
After sitting in months of classes and in countless hours of meetings discussing strategy, this is undoubtedly the neatest explanation and summary I have seen - it would certainly have provided a productive starting point and a helpful touchstone.
I look forward to recommending it to others, and I hope it is read by more.
This is a great article that curates and summarises the two great books on Strategy. It is refreshing and a great way to connect the essence of the challenged-based strategy approach. As a supply chain professional, I can relate to it. Diagnosis is the step that allows us to address the cause and not the symptoms. If done right, adopted problem-solving measures become key enablers for success and competitive advantage, which many examples have already provided.
The key issue is that most organisational strategies are prepared and signed off by a group of individuals without a clear understanding of the day-to-day modus operandi and know-how. Suboptimal, if not incoherent, implementation of the proposed strategy can jeopardise medium —to long-term organisational strategic clarity and intent.
The challenged-strategy practitioner must continue advocating and help reframe the internal process.
Thank you for this brief perspective, I could recognize the underlying ideas from "Good strategy, bad strategy". Thank you!
I'm of the view that most transformation failures are framed as delivery failures, but they are actually category errors, ie, flaws in how the problem was conceptualized in the first place.
What gets called a "strategy" is often not a strategy at all!
A PowerPoint-shaped hallucination built on false assumptions, flawed taxonomies, third-hand market clichés, and a half-baked plan IS NOT A STRATEGY (but I am nobody to postulate this, admittedly I do not come from a strategy background).
The Greek root of the word "strategy" is "strategos", which does not mean "thinker", but a "wartime general", ie, someone who understood the terrain, the troops, the politics.
Today's equivalents are, in my experience, too often removed from the field. They draw battle plans without scouting the ground.
Tech people are often closer to the ground truth, but lack the mandate to question the gods.
Strategy folks, on the other hand, possess the microphone, but not the diagnostics.
So, the infamous "translation layer" that I like to refer to is not just a space between "two teams", but essentially is the epistemological fault line between fantasy and friction. And the most dangerous errors are not the ones that fail fast, but the ones that quietly metastasize because they are beautifully narrated and poorly interrogated.
With prompt-engineering becoming a thing these days, GPTs are now able to spit out halfway decent "strategies" (or something that can be defined close enough), and the idea itself is no longer the bottleneck.
You can generate ten "growth plays" in 60 seconds, sure, but only one of them can (maybe) survive contact with your org chart, your data model, your change-fatigued workforce.
The ability to filter signal from noise, and the instinct to localize a generic idea into a real context, is becoming scarcer and scarcer.
In this new world, the premium imho shifts to:
- Diagnosing where reality will resist
- Spotting where abstract ambition will rot under the surface tension of real operations
- Knowing what to cut, not just what to add
Put differently: everyone can be a "strategist" now, but few can be editors.
Think of large organizations as ensembles, not machines.
Consultants who thrive in this space are not savants of any one discipline. They are choreographers able to feel timing, mood, resistance. They listen to dissonance and smell misalignment early.
This is not a role that fits in an org chart.
It is an emergent persona: someone who floats between units, "translating" (I keep using this term) abstractions into constraints, constraints into prioritization, and prioritization into political permission.
The job is not to know everything (who does?!)
The job is to know where everyone else is lying to themselves.
Well put MC
Thank you, that was a wonderful article.
It was a beautiful, concise, and most useful articulation of a nebulous term.
After sitting in months of classes and in countless hours of meetings discussing strategy, this is undoubtedly the neatest explanation and summary I have seen - it would certainly have provided a productive starting point and a helpful touchstone.
I look forward to recommending it to others, and I hope it is read by more.
I also enjoyed your reading list.
Thanks, this is a great article.
This is a great article that curates and summarises the two great books on Strategy. It is refreshing and a great way to connect the essence of the challenged-based strategy approach. As a supply chain professional, I can relate to it. Diagnosis is the step that allows us to address the cause and not the symptoms. If done right, adopted problem-solving measures become key enablers for success and competitive advantage, which many examples have already provided.
The key issue is that most organisational strategies are prepared and signed off by a group of individuals without a clear understanding of the day-to-day modus operandi and know-how. Suboptimal, if not incoherent, implementation of the proposed strategy can jeopardise medium —to long-term organisational strategic clarity and intent.
The challenged-strategy practitioner must continue advocating and help reframe the internal process.