Is there enough strategy in your strategy?

Many businesses confuse strategic planning with business strategy itself.  When strategy becomes a planning exercise, businesses lose the ability to adapt, miss early warning signs, and develop dangerous blind spots. 

True strategy demands a big idea – a cohesive set of choices about positioning, value proposition, or competitive advantage that makes it clear how success will be achieved.

A global consumer goods company recently completed its annual planning cycle, producing an impressive 60-page document covering market initiatives, launch timelines, investments, and quarterly targets. Yet when asked to articulate their strategy - the distinctive choices about how they would compete and win - the leadership team struggled. They had a plan, but not a strategy.

This is more common than most executives would care to admit. Businesses invest enormous effort in strategic planning cycles, producing comprehensive documents that look strategic but fundamentally aren't. The focus drifts toward execution detail – what will be done, when, and by whom – while insufficient time is spent on the harder questions of why these particular choices and how they connect to create competitive advantage.

The consequences are serious. Without a clear strategic idea at the core, organisations become slow to change course, unable to recognise when assumptions have broken down, and vulnerable to competitive moves they should have anticipated. They optimise execution of the wrong strategy rather than questioning whether the strategy itself remains sound.

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When planning replaces thinking

Strategic planning processes have a seductive quality. They create the appearance of rigour and control. Detailed timelines, clear ownership, measurable milestones – these all feel productive and manageable. The problem is that a well-executed plan built on weak strategic foundations delivers mediocrity efficiently.

Strategic planning translates decisions into action. It focuses on defining what will be done, when, and by whom.  On its own, planning does not explain why these choices create advantage or whether the underlying assumptions are sound. When planning substitutes for strategy, organisations execute efficiently without ever questioning the direction they’re heading in.

This drift happens gradually. Planning cycles become annual rituals, reinforced by senior leaders’ demand for certainty and concrete commitments.  Teams focus on what they can control – budgets, timelines, resource allocation – rather than confronting uncomfortable questions about whether their fundamental approach still makes sense. The process rewards detailed execution thinking over uncomfortable strategic challenge.

The result:  Incremental extrapolations of existing approaches - a comprehensive list of activities and initiatives, but without the clear, connected choices that define how the organisation will win.

What business strategy actually is

Good strategy contains a big idea. It might be about positioning: choosing to own a specific space in customers' minds that competitors can't easily claim. It might be about value proposition: delivering a combination of benefits that creates meaningful differentiation. It might be about competitive advantage: building capabilities or assets that make it genuinely difficult for rivals to replicate your success.

Business Strategy, at its core, is a set of connected choices that add up to create a distinctive position – a big idea that is visible in the sum of those choices that delivers a targeted impact in the marketplace. It's about deciding where to compete, how to compete, and what capabilities to build – and equally importantly, what not to do. It should make the connection between activities and outcomes clear.

A premium drinks brand expanding into new markets needs more than a launch plan. The strategy should articulate what position they're claiming (luxury everyday indulgence versus special occasion treat?), who they're targeting (aspirational mainstream or established affluent?), and how distribution, pricing, and marketing choices reinforce that position. The plan executes the strategy; the strategy explains why that particular plan creates competitive advantage.

The critical consequences of strategy-light planning

When businesses mistake planning for strategy, three dangerous patterns emerge:

1. They become slow to change course

Without a clear strategic thesis to test against reality, there’s no framework for adaptation. The plan becomes the anchor. Teams are measured on delivering initiatives on schedule, not on whether those initiatives remain the right ones. By the time financial results show the approach isn’t working, significant resources have often been committed in the wrong direction.

Use case:  A food manufacturer commits to a three-year premium innovation roadmap without testing the core assumption: that its brand can command premium pricing in new categories. When early launches underperform, the team pushes ahead because the plan dictates it, rather than revisiting the premise. Years and millions later, they confirm what earlier strategic testing could have revealed: the brand lacks premium credibility in those spaces.

2. They miss early warning signs

Strategy-light organisations lack explicit hypotheses, so they struggle to see when reality diverges from assumptions. They track activity and targets, but not whether the causal logic linking actions to outcomes is holding.

Use case:  If your logic is that distribution expansion drives trial, which drives profitable repeat purchase, each link within this chain should be measured. But if the “strategy” is simply a distribution expansion plan, weak trial rates or poor repeat economics may go unnoticed until revenue targets are missed.

3. They develop blind spots

When strategy becomes the sum of departmental plans stitched together, the connections between choices disappear. Functions pursue their own initiatives, but no one asks whether those choices reinforce each other or optimise for conflicting outcomes.

Use case: A business pursues efficiency through standardisation while also chasing differentiation through customisation. Because each sits in a different part of the plan, the tension is never reconciled. Both initiatives hit milestones, yet the overall effect is diluted and incoherent.

Keeping strategy at the centre

Avoiding these traps requires deliberate effort to keep strategic thinking at the heart of planning processes, not just at the front end:

• Start with the big idea, not the plan. Before diving into detailed planning, leadership teams should be able to articulate the core strategic hypothesis in a few sentences. What position are we claiming? What distinctive capabilities will we build? How do our choices connect to create advantage? If this can't be clearly stated, the planning exercise is premature.
• Test assumptions explicitly. Good strategy makes assumptions visible so they can be challenged. What has to be true about customers, competitors, or the market for this strategy to succeed? By making these explicit, organisations create the framework for recognising when reality diverges from expectation. Planning processes should build in regular assumption reviews, not just progress tracking.
• Measure strategic health, not just plan completion. Track whether the strategic logic is holding – are the causal connections playing out as expected? Is the position strengthening? Are capabilities developing? These are different questions from whether initiatives are on schedule, and they require different measurement approaches.
• Create space for challenge. Annual planning cycles easily become box-ticking exercises where challenging the fundamental strategy feels like disrupting momentum. Successful organisations deliberately create forums for strategic debate that sit outside the planning cycle, where the focus is on testing whether the strategy still makes sense rather than on delivering the plan.
• Connect choices visibly. When presenting strategy, make the connections between choices explicit. Show how distribution decisions reinforce positioning choices, how capability investments support the value proposition, how resource allocation reflects strategic priorities. If the connections aren't clear, the strategy probably isn't coherent.

Strategy and planning working together

This isn’t an argument against planning. Rigorous planning is essential for execution. But planning should serve strategy, not replace it. The plan is how you deliver the strategy; the strategy is why those actions create advantage.

Effective organisations maintain this distinction throughout their annual cycles. They invest time in strategic debate before committing to plans and revisit assumptions regularly, not only when results disappoint. They test whether their strategic logic holds, not just whether activities are completed.  When strategy and planning are balanced, plans are more resilient because they rest on tested strategic foundations. Execution improves because teams understand not just what they’re doing but why. Organisations adapt faster because they track whether their strategic thesis remains valid, not just whether they’re on schedule.

Strategy’s hard work is making clear choices about how to win. It means confronting trade-offs, testing assumptions, and committing to a distinctive approach that won’t please everyone. That discomfort may explain why many organisations gravitate toward the more tangible work of planning but without enough strategy in your strategy, you’re simply executing efficiently in whatever direction you’re pointed.  And in competitive markets, that’s rarely enough.