The Clarity Trap

“We need more clarity.”

It is the most common refrain in strategy reviews, boardrooms, and leadership off-sites. Clarity of vision. Clarity of priorities. Clarity of execution. In stable, knowable environments, this instinct makes sense. In a world wrapped in what Clausewitz called “the fog of greater or lesser uncertainty,” the relentless pursuit of clarity can become strategic self-harm.

What if the problem is not that we lack clarity, but that we try to impose it where it does not belong?

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, 

Too often, we talk about strategy as if it were an artefact. Something you produce, publish, and put on a shelf. A plan, a framework, a deck.

But strategy is not a thing. It is not an output.

Strategy is a way of being.

It is lived. It is enacted. It is a way of thinking, a way of behaving, and most of all, the ongoing pursuit of viability.

In a world saturated by noise, narrative spin, and institutional echo chambers, the greatest threat to strategy is not what we don’t know. It’s how tightly we cling to what we think we do.

Most organisations will never notice the moment their strategy disconnects from reality. The numbers still look good. The meetings still run on time. The strategy still reads well on a slide. But somewhere, unnoticed, the feedback loop closes.