Most businesses don't have a strategy. They have a collection of tactics masquerading as a plan. They have projections, goals, and initiatives—but no coherent approach to actually achieving them. This explains why so many companies lurch from one priority to another, never gaining momentum.
I've spent the last decade helping organizations develop and implement strategies that create lasting advantage. What I've discovered is that effective strategy isn't what most people think it is.
Strategy isn't a document. It's not a retreat. It's not a framework with four quadrants.
Strategy is a philosophy of becoming—a clear understanding of who you're changing and the change you seek to make.
Beyond the MBA Playbook
The problem with conventional strategic planning is that it confuses the map with the territory. Traditional approaches reduce the complexity of markets to tidy models that look convincing in presentations but fail in reality.
I take a fundamentally different approach.
Effective strategy requires understanding four interconnected elements: systems, games, empathy, and time. Miss any one of these, and your strategy becomes dangerously incomplete.
Understanding Systems
Every business exists within systems that were here before you arrived and will remain after you're gone. These systems—market dynamics, regulatory environments, technological ecosystems—naturally resist change.
I watch businesses repeatedly bash their heads against system constraints they never bothered to understand. They try to disrupt industries without grasping why those industries function as they do.
Systems thinking starts with questions: Why does this system exist? Who benefits from it? How are decisions actually made? What are the feedback loops that maintain stability?
When I work with clients, we map these systems visually. We identify leverage points—places where small inputs can create disproportionate outputs. This is where strategy begins to generate real power.
Most strategic failures stem from misunderstanding the system you're operating within. Full stop.
Playing the Right Game
Business is a game of limited resources and competing interests. Taking a game perspective allows you to be more objective about competitive dynamics and understand what moves have historically succeeded.
I find that struggling businesses are often playing the wrong game entirely. They're competing on price when they should be competing on experience. They're trying to be everything to everyone when specificity would serve them better.
The most powerful strategic moves involve finding a different quadrant to occupy than your competitors or doing something others aren't willing to do.
Ask yourself: What game am I actually playing? What are the rules—written and unwritten? What does winning look like? What moves are other players making?
Clear answers to these questions reveal opportunities invisible to those caught in tactical thinking.
Practicing Empathy
We can only engage with the market when the market wants to engage with us. Strategy becomes resilient when the people we serve would genuinely miss us if we disappeared.
I've watched Amazon gradually sacrifice customer experience for ad revenue. I've experienced healthcare providers that make patients jump through unnecessary hoops. These are empathy failures that create strategic vulnerability.
Strategic empathy isn't about feeling sorry for people. It's about seeing the world through their eyes with such clarity that you can anticipate needs they can't articulate.
This is why I spend so much time helping clients develop deep customer understanding. Not through surveys and focus groups, but through direct observation and conversation. The insights that emerge often contradict everything the business thought it knew.
Leveraging Time
Time flies like an arrow—tomorrow will be different than today. Strategy involves creating conditions for tomorrow to be better than your competition can match.
I see businesses constantly sacrificing long-term advantage for short-term results. They cut corners on quality, underinvest in capabilities, or chase quarterly numbers at the expense of building enduring value.
Strategic time horizons vary by industry. In software, it might be 18 months. In real estate development, 10 years. What matters is that your time perspective matches the reality of your business context.
The beauty of time as a strategic dimension is that it's parceled out equally to everyone. Your competitors face the same constraints. The difference is what you do with it.
Over time, consistent strategic action creates advantages that others can't easily replicate. This is how small companies eventually overtake industry giants.
Strategic Choices That Shape Your Future
Strategy ultimately comes down to making deliberate choices about four things:
1. Who you serve - I know a fish store owner who refuses to sell to customers who don't maintain proper aquariums. His customer selection strategy has built a thriving community around his business.
2. How you reach them - Book distribution channels fundamentally dictate what books get created. Your distribution strategy shapes your entire business model.
3. Who you compete against - Competing against businesses racing to the bottom forces you to do the same. Choose your competitive set wisely.
4. What you measure - The metrics you track will inevitably shape the work you do. Measure what truly matters, not just what's easy to count.
These choices aren't one-time decisions. They're ongoing commitments that require constant reinforcement. The moment you lose clarity on any of these dimensions, your strategy begins to drift.
Elegant Strategy in Practice
An elegant strategy helps you get where you're going with minimal effort by seeing systems clearly and playing games efficiently. It's about riding waves with grace rather than fighting currents.
I've developed different strategic approaches for different contexts:
For Small Businesses
Small businesses come in two varieties: jobs without a boss and small-but-mighty organizations with growth potential. The strategic approach differs for each.
For the former, strategy focuses on personal sustainability and satisfaction. For the latter, I recommend looking at what big businesses aren't willing to do, then doing that exceptionally well for a specific audience.
The neighborhood bakery that knows every customer by name isn't scaling nationally, but it's created a strategic position that chains can't touch.
For New Technology Adoption
When systems change dramatically (as with AI), playing a different game is often the winning move. Don't try to compete directly with established players or adoption patterns.
I advise clients to put new technologies to work for them rather than hoping to be picked by technological gatekeepers. Focus on creating small, valuable networks where you provide unique information or connections others can't replicate.
How to Know If Your Strategy Is Working
Strategy isn't abstract—it produces measurable results. Here's how I help clients evaluate strategic effectiveness:
Are your assertions about what would happen next actually working out? Is your business getting easier to operate, or are you lying to yourself?
Are you seeing progress toward strategic goals, or just waiting for a miracle?
When you acquire assets, do they give you resources to acquire the next asset, creating a sustainable path forward?
The best strategies create positive feedback loops where each success makes the next one more likely and less costly.
Strategy Versus Planning
Strategy includes a sketch that becomes a plan for reaching goals. But plans alone don't guarantee results.
I've seen beautiful strategic plans fail because they didn't account for human nature, system constraints, or competitive responses. I've also seen back-of-napkin strategies succeed wildly because they understood the game at a fundamental level.
Your strategy should be simple enough to remember but sophisticated enough to guide complex decisions. It should provide clear criteria for what to do and what not to do.
Why You Might Need Strategic Help
I don't believe everyone needs a strategy consultant. Many businesses do just fine with intuitive approaches developed through experience.
But there are specific situations where external strategic perspective creates disproportionate value:
- When you're stuck in tactical quicksand, unable to see the bigger picture.
- When industry disruption threatens your business model.
- When growth has plateaued despite executing well.
- When you're preparing for major transitions (leadership, ownership, market entry).
In these moments, having someone who can see systems clearly, understand game dynamics, bring a fresh empathetic perspective, and extend your time horizon can make all the difference.
Strategic thinking isn't complicated, but it is hard. It requires stepping back from daily operations to see patterns and possibilities others miss.
That's where I come in.
I help businesses develop strategies that actually work—not because they follow some universal template, but because they're precisely calibrated to your unique context, capabilities, and aspirations.
The best strategy isn't the most sophisticated one. It's the one you'll actually implement consistently over time.
And that's the philosophy of becoming that drives everything I do.