The strategy dreaming trap

❌ We’ve reached the last of eight strategy traps and this one is maybe the greatest. This trap is when your strategy has produced ideas going nowhere instead of choices taking you somewhere. It can take a few forms. One is that you’ve defined some positive-sounding ideas but, even if they are delivered with excellence, they won’t move you in a defined direction. Another is having a clash or disconnect between long-term choices, like your purpose and values, and the actions needed to deliver on your short or mid-term strategy. How many corporates have espoused values like ‘family’ and ‘care’ or even 'creativity' and 'insight', only to deliver a brutal downsizing and then wonder why performance still struggles. A third form this trap can take is having great ideas – even strategically sound ideas – but no processes and behaviours to establish and maintain accountability.

✅ In contrast, a great strategy features clear decisions – choices about the few moves you’re saying yes to, and all those you’re saying no to. That’s decisiveness. Those choices are then able to move your organisation toward a specific goal, on your way to a specific vision. That’s direction. In addition, while strategy is about exploring, creating and choosing, it’s also about executing. That’s delivery. Decisiveness, direction and delivery may seem simple, yet all three require another ‘d’ – discipline. Making choices aimed at a specific ambition, backed by actual action, requires several practices that hold the feet of leaders and teams to the proverbial fire.

💡To avoid the dreaming trap, consider how well you closed out your last strategy. If you didn’t close it out, don’t start a new one until you’ve spent time reflecting on where your execution and accountability disciplines failed. Then, ask whether your new strategy needs to build on that effort, moving in the same direction, or if your direction needs to change. You need a direction before you can make strategic choices. Spend time nailing that. Finally, when you think you’ve landed your tight set of choices, pull back and test that they will move you toward your ambition. Play it out. Progress requires it. To overcome this trap, I recommend the Four Disciplines of Execution. It’s an excellent framework for implementing strategy.