There is a word that has lost all meaning in organisations. Strategy.

Every function has one now. HR has a people strategy. IT has a technology strategy. Finance has a financial strategy. Marketing has a brand strategy. And somewhere above all of them, there is supposed to be an organisational strategy. Except by the time you have finished counting all the strategies, you have not described a coherent direction at all. You have described a competition for resources.

Why leaders need to rediscover the ground before they can move

A commander stands on a ridge at first light. The air is cold, the ground uneven. Scouts return in ones and twos, each with fragments of information that contradict the last. The map does not match the terrain. Units are not where they were supposed to be. The enemy has advanced more quickly than expected. The weather has turned. Every decision involves trade-offs that will hurt someone. There is no pause button.

Why grand strategy is an earned identity, shaped through interaction with reality

Most organisations behave as if grand strategy can be decided in isolation.

A leadership team steps away. The language is careful. Purpose, ambition, values, north star. The organisation returns with a refreshed sense of who it is and where it is going.

Except it does not.

What usually emerges is not identity, but aspiration. A story leaders would like to tell about themselves, rather than something that has been earned through action.

Many organisations start strategy with an inspiring purpose — and then wonder why execution fails. This piece explains how the gap between narrative and behaviour erodes coherence, damages trust, and weakens strategy at its core.

On structural coupling, capability, and the real limits of choice

We often talk about strategy as if it comes first. Leaders design a strategy, and then “align” the organisation to deliver it. The familiar mantra is form follows function.

But the reality is more complex. Strategy and organisation are not linear. They are coupled.

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.

Rethinking aspirations, planning cycles, and the complexity we're actually in.

We must move on from the idea that strategy is a five—or ten–year plan—a fixed vision we march toward. It's comforting fiction: plot the course, cascade the goals, align the incentives. But strategy doesn't live in Gantt charts or glossy roadmaps. It lives in relationships, tensions, and how we continually navigate change.

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.