Strategy as an ecosystem approach: navigating interdependence in a shifting landscape
We've long been sold an orthodoxy of strategy that treats the organisation as an independent organism, competing in a market arena with fixed boundaries and clear rules. It's the image of chess boards, war games, or analytical grids. It is neat, discrete, and ultimately misleading. But organisations don't operate in arenas. They operate in ecosystems.
If we're serious about leading strategy in complexity, we must shift from competing for fixed positions to navigating evolving patterns of interdependence. This ecosystem approach recognises that no organisation operates alone and that advantage increasingly comes not from dominance but from how we manage our structural couplings with others.
From competitive positioning to ecosystem fit
Traditional strategy assumes we can define our position in relation to stable competitors, customers, or suppliers. But those fixed points disappear in environments where change is constant and relationships are fluid. Instead, what matters is fit—the evolving interplay between your organisation and the actors around you.
This idea of fit, drawn from Patrick Hoverstadt and Lucy Loh's Patterns of Strategy, reframes strategy as a dance, not a plan. You move, they move, the environment shifts, and new manoeuvres become possible or necessary. Strategy becomes less about control and more about coherence. Less about beating the competition and more about shaping the context.
We're not operating in a linear game of positioning. Advantage comes from managing strategic relationships across three critical dimensions: fit, power, and time. But this isn't just about managing individual relationships in isolation. It requires an expanded awareness that you're working within a broader ecosystem. One populated by multiple herds, edge players, laggards, and emerging disruptors, all moving in different directions, at different speeds, and with varying definitions of value.
Strategic fit: beyond alignment
Fit isn't about internal alignment or shared values. It's about co-evolution. Two organisations may be tightly coupled, not because they agree, but because each has adapted in relation to the other.
This coupling creates stretch. It pulls organisations into unfamiliar territory, demanding adaptation. But this isn't a weakness. It's the engine of learning. Organisations that understand fit embrace the stretch. They anticipate which couplings will matter and shape their organisation's response, not through rigid design, but by building adaptive capacity.
This is especially important in ecosystems with unclear or overlapping boundaries. You may be structurally coupled to customers, suppliers, regulators, and even parallel sectors. Each coupling shapes your strategic options. Actors in your external environment influence the trajectory of your organisation and the ecosystem you're part of.
Take Amazon. It doesn't just serve customers. It's entangled with developers, regulators, logistics partners, and suppliers. Each relationship shapes how the business behaves and how the broader ecosystem evolves. A change in one area can ripple through the whole model.
Strategy, then, isn't about controlling outcomes. It's about sensing where structural couplings form, stretch, or break, and adapting your fit accordingly.
Power: the limits of leverage
Power in an ecosystem rarely lies at the centre. It belongs to those who can move deliberately and with focus. It's not just about how much force you have; it's about when and where you apply it.
Two actors might be equal in capacity, but one can focus it with intent while the other spreads it thin. One can respond quickly while the other lags. In ecosystem terms, power isn't static. It's relational.
This is where decentralised execution meets strategic manoeuvring. You need to distribute autonomy to act at the edges of the organisation while still maintaining coherence. Power isn't about control. It's about responsiveness, the ability to reconfigure as new dynamics emerge.
This is also why traditional approaches to "partnership" often fail. They treat other actors as levers to be pulled rather than independent organisations with their own agendas, couplings, and strategies. In ecosystems, power flows both ways. Try to dominate without understanding how the ecosystem is connected, and you risk resistance or irrelevance.
Time: strategy as a rhythm
Perhaps the most underestimated dimension of ecosystem strategy is time. Not the timeline of a strategic plan, but the rhythm at which strategy unfolds.
The question is no longer "Are we fast?" but "Are we fast enough relative to others?" Some actors are at the leading edge, innovating and reshaping expectations. Others trail behind, waiting for clarity. Most are somewhere in between.
Strategic intensity, where change is happening fastest, tends to concentrate at the edges. Regulation, infrastructure, and tradition often lag. This creates time asymmetries that can be used intentionally. You don't always want to be the fastest. You want to move in rhythm with the relationships that matter most.
Ambiguity plays a role here too. It gives you room to manoeuvre. It lets you hold multiple futures open, operating at different speeds across different couplings. It allows time for alignment where needed, and creates urgency where delay would be costly.
The most effective organisations don't move at a single speed. They adapt their tempo to the demands of their ecosystem.
Ecosystem considerations that matter
As ecosystems become increasingly more dynamic, several additional considerations come into view:
Multiplicity of actors: You rarely deal with a simple customer, competitor, and regulator triad. Ecosystems include funders, trade bodies, standards agencies, critics, parallel sectors, and often competitor nations.
Misaligned tempos: Innovation often outpaces regulation, and user behaviour may lag behind technology. Time lags create both risk and opportunity.
Keystone gaps: Some ecosystems lack central actors to provide coherence, infrastructure, or direction. In those cases, someone must step up, or the ecosystem will drift.
Unequal value logic: Not all actors value the same things. Some prize speed, others stability. Some care about reputation, others about capability. Your strategy must consider these tensions.
Fluid boundaries: Today's collaborators may be tomorrow's competitors. Relationships shift. Herds reorganise. The edges are always moving.
Understanding these dynamics is essential. But the goal isn't to map everything. It's to make better moves within it.
Leading in the ecosystem
This approach doesn't call for visionaries with grand plans. It calls for manoeuvrists. Leaders who can read shifting dynamics, move with intent, and adapt as the ecosystem evolves.
What makes the difference isn't certainty, but the ability to operate without it:
Make sense, don't seek clarity. The environment rarely offers clean answers. The work is to interpret, not simplify.
Manoeuvres over moves. Think in terms of strategic sequences, not isolated actions. Relationships evolve through interaction, not instruction.
Contextual leadership. Adjust your posture. No single style works across all couplings. What works in one space might unravel another.
Coherence over control. Let strategy emerge from distributed insight and adaptive action, not top-down intent.
Ecosystem strategy isn't about being everything to everyone. It's about being the right thing, in the right place, at the right time, in relation to the right actors.
Rethinking strategy for dynamic environments
Strategy today is no longer about holding a fixed position. It's about navigating shifting patterns of interaction. The map matters. But only if you know how to move.
The task isn't to impose control. It's to generate momentum—sense where influence is building. Shape flows of value, innovation, and meaning. Move while others hesitate. Pause when others rush. It's not about intention alone. It's about understanding the interplay.
This work is demanding and rarely follows a straight line, but it's also at the edge of strategic relevance. Those who learn to move with their ecosystem will not only adapt to change but also shape the conditions under which others must adapt.
