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.

Too often, purpose is treated as something you declare, design, and disseminate. It's written on the walls, embedded into decks, and broadcast at town halls. But when leaders treat purpose as real simply because it's been said, they mistake narrative for reality, and control for coherence.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: It doesn’t matter what you say your organisation exists to do. It matters what your organisation actually does.

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.