Is your Strategy a Waste?

"Strategy" has a bad rap in many teams - not because it's a bad thing, but because in most companies, it's disconnected.
Disconnected from reality, from their work, from the situation they are facing.
A team lead recently told me, "We're not involved in strategy. That's someone else's job. We just get told our job, and then we do it."
And that's how strategy goes to die before it's even ready to walk.

Three Signs your Strategy is Failing

Over the years, I have condensed a few leading indicators for strategic failure that help you avoid the pitfalls:

1. Strategy Without Operational Awareness

Don't get me wrong: It's not like I haven't built my own strategy slide decks.
But: most of the time, strategy builds cloud castles - created by folks who don't do the work, for people who don't do the work.
I remember having an executive explain to me their "strategy" in detail, patiently, for over an hour. Finally, I asked four questions:

• How does that relate to the work people are doing?
• What signals do you expect, to tell you whether you're getting there?
• What steering mechanisms will you be using as you drive?
• Do the people doing the work even know about this strategy?

All I got was, "That's Operations, not Strategy."
And that's exactly the kind of cloud castles I'm talking about: there's zero chance that such a strategy survives contact with reality.

2. Your Strategy is a Fixed Plan

Most companies create a strategy in fixed intervals, and then document, file and distribute it.
At the end of the strategic interval, they run a post-mortem to figure out why it didn't work.
Predictably. Every. Single. Time.
Strategy is an abstraction. On purpose. It ignores the details. It needs to - or it deteriorates into tactics.
It's built on assumptions. But these assumptions need to be validated against reality - in real time.
The missing nuances? No problem - until they become a problem. When that happens, you need to catch the signal, and adjust course:

• Without mechanisms to capture whether your understanding of your situation is your situation, you're hallucinating, not strategizing.
• As time progresses, your deck drifts further and further from reality. The answer isn't spending more time on better slides: it's adaptivity.
• When internal and external conditions make your strategy unfeasible, you need to adjust your strategy, not the work.

3. Your Strategy isn't Aligned with Execution

I was amazed when working with a CEO who was so adamant that his strategy was clear - and nobody knew what to do with it!
Yes, his closest circle had seen the slides, but this "strategy" was a mumbojumbo of sloganized buzzwords like "AI-powered innovation empowered with data-driven decision-making" and "Industry leadership with future-proof paradigms."
People simply wanted to know, "Do you want to strengthen existing products, or diversify?" - but none of that was answered: Execution simply drifted mid-air.

The misunderstanding?

• Strategy doesn't need fancy words. It needs to connect: What customers need, what people do, and how people think.
• You're not defining strategy for executives. It's for execution. If you can't tell me how you execute, you're blank.
• If your execs don't know how to talk to workers, and vice versa, your strategy gets "lost in translation."

How to Close the Gap

Closing the Strategy-Execution gap is not optional. If you don't, you'll burn money, drive off your best people, and lose out on market opportunity. A coherent, executable strategy is not a "nice to have" perk - it's necessary to run a sustainable business. Incoherence, however, creates waste and friction - translating into money spent for nothing, and money not earned. So here are a few tips to help you close the gap:

Map the Situation, then the Destination

Of course, you need a vision - but "a vision without a plan is a hallucination." And a plan includes a transition "from here to there." That means:

• Where are we today?
• How will our situation be different?
• What are the key moves we're going to make?
• What is needed in order to make these moves?

Many "strategies" fail as key moves are not realistic based on today's situation, or the preconditions for making a move are out of sync with the available capabilities and resources.

The people who know the situation, and how to change it? These are the execution folks - which is why they need to be at the table when you close the gap.

Build Real-Time Feedback

If your strategy is fire-and-forget - let me tell you: it's forgettable.
Strategy that has a bite connects outcomes with metrics, signals, feedback, and conversations.
Strategic Post-mortems aren't a sign of a healthy strategic process: they're a sign that your process isn't built to succeed.

Make Strategy Responsive, Not Directive

Percolating strategy top-down is the most pervasive disease corporations have, and too many small companies get inspired to adapt it, even though the results are mediocre and failures massive. Strategy is a map and a compass - not the road. The road needs to be built, and that is execution.
The people deciding distance, speed and direction don't even have the information or bandwidth to concern themselves with every rock or tree on the ground. That's okay - but their ability to succeed depends on taking these things into account.
That's why you need a responsive strategy - one that adapts as necessary without losing the way, or the plot.

Co-Create With Execution

The best strategies build momentum from "where we are" by leveraging the strengths that are already there. Ask the people who are executing the work what they see as meaningful steps, and where they believe resources are mis-invested, you'll be amazed.
A good strategy should have clear, actionable goals, and be immediately relatable to people's daily work. If people can't say where they fit in the big picture, you've found the problem already. And it's either that people didn't get connected, or that there is no connection. In either case, you can adjust right there, right then - and don't need to wait for a post-mortem held in an ivory tower among people, none of whom know why the strategy failed again.

tl;dr

Most strategic failures aren't caused by a "bad strategy" or "poor execution." They died in the strategy-execution gap - and when that happens repeatedly, teams lose trust in "strategy." But it's not hopeless. There are a few things you can readily do to improve - starting today Map the situation, wire in real-time feedback, and make strategy responsive and co-created. Close those loops, close the gap.

Predictability in middle management? Good luck!

If you’ve ever worked in middle management, you’ve likely felt stuck between chaos from below and control from above. Executives demand structure, predictability, and process adherence. Teams, on the other hand, thrive on flexibility, adaptation, and autonomy.
And the manager? They’re caught in the middle, playing a never-ending game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Management: A Game of Rock-Paper-Scissors

You may wonder: What do management and Rock-Paper-Scissors have in common? Middle management is a shark basin - the other a lighthearted, simple hand game often played by kids. I often thought about how to explain what happens in middle management to people unfamiliar with it - and came up with this game as a simple model of what middle management has to deal with.

The Three Moves

As a middle manager, you can ultimately play only one of three moves:

Rock = Stability

Large companies are noisy, chaotic and unpredictable. Playing "Rock" means standardization, consistency, documentation, governance, and regulatory compliance create some predictability.

On the downside, an overuse of Rock makes the process itself the goal, and that causes tremendous waste.

Paper = Delivery

Paper is about taking action, getting stuff done, and produces measurable outcomes. With increasing levels of repeatability and reproducibility, performance becomes scalable.

Paper work is smooth. (all puns fully intended.) Unfortunately, Paper will eventually lead to "doing efficiently that which should not be done at all" (ref. Peter Drucker) - and the biggest threat to businesses is investing into results nobody needs.

Scissors = Disruption

Scissors cut through waste, inefficiency and outdated practices. A play of Scissors is leading innovation, making changes, and turning processes upside down - doing something new, or in ways that were never tried (here) before.

The opportunity of Scissors are immense - and yet, an overuse of the Scissors kills productivity: It destabilizes the organization, causing confusion and chaos.

So then - what is the best move? None.

Let me explain.

There's No Single Best Move

Every move creates the conditions for its own counter:

• Rock sets the basis for productivity - but ultimately, Rock itself is unproductive. Hence playing Rock means that Paper (being productive) becomes the next best move.
• Paper means being productive - but also, outdating. A prolonged period of playing Paper must be followed by a play of Scissors (change).
• Scissors cuts the waste - but it causes chaos: forcing Rock (stability).

The Real Complexity: The System Remembers

Middle management is a game played over time and not in isolation. Past moves shape future conditions. There are other players (your fellow middle managers, your teams - and your customers.) To win, you must think several steps ahead:

• Focus on Rock - and you'll lose to Paper. The player who plays Paper in a game of Rock, Rock, Rock - becomes the winner by default: being a results-driver an environment valuing process conformity over outcomes will be a refreshing change to senior leadership.
• Focus on Paper - and you will struggle with Scissors. The player who brings a novel idea into a stagnant organisation wins, as even small, actionable changes can make a world of a difference.
• Focus on Scissors - and you can't handle Rock. When you're constantly facing the reinforcement of status quo, change will be ineffective - regardless of how good and necessary.

Moving in sequence

And now comes the key challenge: "what should you play next?"

Let's explain what the real problem here is: You're playing a Multiway Rock-Scissors-Paper. You're playing against others (a solvable problem), but you are simultaneously playing against your own past and your own future.

We have established that if you played Rock yesterday, your best move today is probably Paper. And if you play Paper today, your best move tomorrow is Scissors. And after Scissors, you'll have to play Rock again.

But that means that you've got to make a tradeoff between scoring today, and scoring tomorrow. And you can only score today if you prepared for it yesterday.

So then, it's all clear: Play Rock, Paper and Scissors in succession.

Right?

Well - not so quick!

Making a winning move

Even if we assume a fully predictable system - the issue is that you're not playing alone. You're competing with other managers on budget, with other companies on market share, and with customers on business versus customer needs.

So if you played "Rock" yesterday, and you're fully predictable, a competitor will play Scissors on you - because you'll be playing Paper today, and that means, you'll lose.

But then - if you can't play Paper, should you play Rock? Well, then you're not being productive, and then your customers will play Paper on you.

Wouldn't that mean the safest bet after a Rock move is Scissors? Yes.

Except - because it's the safest bet, others will prepare for you playing Scissors by playing Rock.

So you should play Paper?

You see where this is going.

Your own predictability is reducing your odds of making a winning move - so your best chance is to not create any hints on what your next move could be.

The winning strategy: unpredictability

We've discovered that being predictable is a losing strategy.

And a manager always playing the same move is definitely predictable - hence, a single move can not be a successful strategy.

We've also seen that a sequence is also predictable, so "Stabilize, Perform, Disrupt" as a cycle is also not a winning strategy.

That leaves only one strategy for success:

• Play all three moves dynamically, and never lock into a single mode.
• Introduce controlled unpredictability to avoid becoming exploitable.
• Plan for future moves (n+2), not just the next one (n+1).
• Break your own pattern before the system forces you to.

And the desire for Predictability? That's the Problem.

Stakeholders constantly demand predictability: "We need a roadmap." "We need a deadline." "We need clear processes." "We need clear roles." Oddly enough, these demands create the very unpredictability they despise:

• Playing Rock (stability) reduces performance, requiring a rapid move to Paper (performance). And that means less focus on "How", and more focus on "What and When."
• Playing Paper (performance) leads to stagnation, inviting Scissors (disruption). This is going to be uncomfortable, but the only way to remain in business.
• Playing Scissors (innovation) leads to chaos, demanding a follow-up with some solid Rock (stability). But the people who thrive in creative chaos are the first who leave when things get cast in stone.

There’s No Easy Way Out - just a smarter way to play

The fundamental truth of middle management is that it is not a "problem that can be solved:" it is a system that must be navigated.

• Expect stability, and you'll be blindsided.
• Expect performance, and you'll be sidelined.
• Expect innovation, and you'll be slowed down.

Winning in middle management isn't about picking the right move - it's about ensuring you remain ahead of the game and are ready to make your move at the right time.

The only way to be sustainably successful in middle management is that you must know all three moves, you must know how to play them well, you must know when to play them - and what to do when one is being played on you. And why you can't win by locking in any of them.

So, the next time someone asks "predictability in middle management" - just smile. Because now, you know the truth: Good luck.