The Chronic Problems with Strategy — and how the Emergent Approach aims to fix them
4 min readDec 6, 2021
Mark Blackwell & Pete Compo
Despite how much is written about strategy, and money spent on it, reports of chronic failures persist. Have you experienced any of the following problems with strategy?
Preparation
- A yearly exercise of budgeting, goal setting, and market forecasts, mostly to satisfy the boss.
- Confusion among colleagues and “experts” in the consulting-corporate-academia complex around what is actual strategy is.
- False promises of easy “transformations” and aspirational strategies that are no more than wishful thinking.
Process
- Strategy designed by “ivory towers,” often marginalizing — and sometimes alienating — those who best know the business or the function.
- Linear sequential strategy recipes that lead to huge slide decks sitting on the electronic shelf collecting electronic dust.
- Easy and quick strategy development (because execution is all that matters).
- Collection of the “usual suspects” of strategy processes — market share data, financial data, growth rates, SWOT, PESTEL — before it is even understood what information is truly needed for diagnosis…