Strategy and the Cult of Nonsense
Most strategies are lies leaders tell themselves.
Strategy has been in an absurd state for some time. As I argued in 'How Marketing Hijacked Strategy,' somewhere along the way, the hard work of orienting organisations in complex environments was replaced with branding exercises masquerading as strategy. In my recent conversation with Paul Sweeneythe author of Magnetic Nonsense, we explored how corporate absurdities accumulate and trap leaders. Strategy has become one of the richest breeding grounds for this nonsense.
The formula is depressingly familiar. A vague purpose statement, usually grandiose and disconnected from lived reality. A vision that reads like a motivational poster. “Strategic priorities” that are little more than poorly thought-out policies or project lists. Values so obvious they border on satire: integrity, teamwork, respect, as if any leader would seriously argue for dishonesty, selfishness, or contempt.
None of this constitutes strategy. None of it guides decision-making when reality throws up friction, shocks, or trade-offs. These glossy documents get filed away, only to be replaced at the next “strategy refresh,” when the same ritual is repeated and executives convince themselves they’ve acted deliberately. What passes for strategy in many organisations is little more than corporate self-marketing.
Magnetic Nonsense in Strategy
Paul Sweeney describes magnetic nonsense as the kind of absurdity that has its own pull, phrases, practices, and rituals that become self-sustaining despite their obvious emptiness. Strategy is riddled with these magnets.
Purpose statements that declare an organisation exists “to make the world a better place,” yet offer no guidance on how to navigate difficult choices. As Stafford Beer put it, POSIWID — the purpose of a system is what it does, not what it says. The real purpose is revealed in behaviour, not in polished words.
Vision statements stretched decades into the future, untethered from resources, constraints, or plausible manoeuvres. They create theatre, not orientation.
Values that state the obvious but do nothing to shape decisions. Integrity, teamwork, respect, all sound good, but values should define what is important when choices are made, not just list qualities that no leader would ever oppose.
Strategy maps and dashboards that confuse performance measures with strategic orientation. Metrics become the point. People spend more time gaming numbers and justifying slides than actually executing. It often appears that Microsoft has thrown up Power BI boards across every wall, busy visuals masking the absence of a clear strategy.
These artefacts have their own gravitational pull. Once written, they are repeated in town halls, copied into slide decks, and audited by consultants. They circulate until they become the organisation’s strategic language, even though they do nothing to shape decisions. They are magnets, not because they work, but because they are safe, easy, and endlessly repeatable.
The Absurd Consequences
The consequences are deeper than wasted paper. Strategic nonsense corrodes organisations by replacing real direction with an illusion of control and undermining genuine decision-making.
First, it creates false confidence. Leaders believe they have done the work of strategy because a glossy document exists. They mistake slogans for foresight and priorities for orientation.
Second, it fosters organisational cynicism. Employees quickly see through empty words. They know when “integrity” or “innovation” is a poster rather than a practice. The more leadership clings to the theatre, the less trust there is in actual decision-making.
Third, it leaves organisations strategically naked. When shocks arrive, whether from markets, regulators, technology, or geopolitics, the strategy offers no guidance. It cannot tell people how to act, what to trade off, or where to hold ground. Strategy becomes an exercise in theatre rather than navigation.
Strategy as Orientation
If strategy is not vision statements, slogans, or values posters, then what is it?
In The Strategic Ambiguity Advantage, I argued that strategy is about maintaining manoeuvrability — the ability to respond to shifting conditions without collapsing into paralysis or orthodoxy. In A Strategy is a way of being, not an output, I made the case that strategy must be lived and practised, not laminated.
A viable strategy should do three things:
Provide orientation — helping the organisation understand its relationship to the environment, its structural couplings, and the manoeuvres available.
Create coherence — shaping structures and practices so that distributed decisions reinforce one another rather than clash.
Preserve manoeuvrability — ensuring the organisation can adapt course without being trapped by its own orthodoxy.
These are not abstract ideas. Tools like Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model, Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety, and Patterns of Strategy offer ways to think about orientation, coherence, and manoeuvrability in practical terms. They help leaders see how decision rights, information flows, and structural couplings shape viability. They expose the nonsense for what it is: a displacement activity that avoids the hard work of grappling with complexity.
Why Nonsense Wins
If nonsense is so obvious, why does it persist? Here, Paul Sweeney’s argument is instructive. Nonsense persists because it is easier. It avoids conflict. It allows leaders to signal action without changing structures or power. It gives consultants repeat business in “strategy refreshes.” It allows boards to feel reassured by polished artefacts.
Most importantly, it speaks in a language that sounds like strategy without ever requiring strategic choices. As Geoffrey Vickers argued decades ago, real strategy is about “appreciative systems” — how organisations notice, interpret, and act in relation to their environment. That requires confronting trade-offs, surfacing assumptions, and sometimes breaking with orthodoxy. Nonsense avoids all of that.
Breaking the Spell
Breaking the spell of strategic nonsense requires leaders to make a different choice. Not a different choice of words, but a different choice of practice.
Stop equating strategy with branding. Marketing can support strategy, but it is not the same thing. Strategy is not about how you want to be perceived; it is about how you orient and act in a contested environment.
Treat values as design conditions, not slogans. If you claim collaboration as a value, what structures make it possible? If you claim innovation, what freedoms and constraints support it?
Demand decisions, not posters. If a strategy document does not help you choose between two viable but competing courses of action, it is not strategy.
Embed strategy as practice. Strategy should live in decision-making, team discussions, structure and governance processes — not just in a slide deck.
In other words, strategy should help people decide what to do next, not what words to put on the wall.
The Real Work Ahead
Strategy is not clever phrasing or polished documents. It is the real work of sustaining viability in volatile, uncertain, and complex environments. It means making trade-offs visible and deliberate, and giving teams the genuine orientation to act decisively.
The cult of nonsense will not disappear on its own. It is too magnetic, too comfortable, too profitable for those who peddle it. But leaders who want their organisations to endure cannot afford to indulge it.
The core question for every strategy meeting is: Does this clarify what actions to take when reality intervenes? If not, the supposed strategy is simply an empty ritual. Focus on practical guidance, not empty phrases—this is the real test of strategy.
