#4 Never stop

A strategy process is almost always timebound. But strategic choice-making is not. One of the most important objectives of a strategy process is to enable the organisation to continuously sense opportunities and make great choices.

Real strategy is everyday work and not an event.
 
 

Dogma core ideas

In a world that is often characterised as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, it may seem as a foolish task to spend time on strategies and plans. Thus, when faced with exponential technologies with accelerating returns, it is tempting to listen to clichés about “strategy being dead” or that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Let’s stop strategising.

However, this is not the best course of action. In fact, it has never been more important to have a strategy in place with clear choices to provide context and guidance for decisions being made in every part of your company.

As an example, one survey found that 56% of executives experience a challenge in aligning day-to-day decisions with the overall strategy. In addition, the same survey showed that 64% of executives believe that their company has too many conflicting priorities.

The answer, therefore, is not to abandon strategy all together, but to change how it is done.

We must move away from thinking of strategy as a singular event or a static document. Strategy is an ongoing process of making decisions, learning from them and adapting our actions to what we learn when the future unfolds. Strategy must become both deliberate and emergent at the same time.