When I first started working with clients on their strategies, I noticed a pattern: they were often little more than glorified to-do lists. A shopping list of things that actually often contradicted one another. Their visions and mission statements contained feel-good language about innovation and growth, and their lofty aspirations for the year ahead, but no clarity on what needed to change or how people were supposed to act differently.
In a world now moving at the speed of AI, where technology reshapes industries overnight, these traditional plans aren’t just outdated—they’re dangerous. They give organisations a false sense of direction, all while tying them to rigid annual cycles that can’t keep up with reality.
Strategies should drive decisions, but most don’t. Instead of telling people what to do—and what not to do—they drown teams in ambiguity. In a time of relentless technological change, that simply won’t cut it.
Reframing Strategy for a Faster, Smarter World
To execute effectively in today’s fast-moving, AI-driven environment, businesses need to leave the old playbook behind. Annual planning cycles and rigid controls aren’t enough anymore. Strategy must evolve into a living, breathing process that prioritises agility, experimentation, and measurable outcomes.
Here’s what needs to change:
From Annual Planning to Continuous Steering: The world doesn’t wait for your next off-site. You need a process that evolves in real-time.
From Planning & Controlling to Testing & Learning: Strategies should be hypotheses to test, not rules to enforce.
From Deliverables to Business Outcomes: It’s not about what you produce; it’s about what impact you create.
From Doing Everything to Making Bold Choices: Focus on fewer, higher-impact goals and ruthlessly prioritise.
From Top-Down to Multi-Directional: Strategy must involve every corner and every level of the organisation, fostering collaboration across functions.
Without these shifts, businesses risk becoming slow, fragmented, and irrelevant.
The Anatomy of an Effective Strategy
So, what does a good strategy actually look like? For starters, it needs to be clear and actionable. If it’s buried in jargon or reads like a corporate buzzword generator, it’s useless.
A strong strategy lays out a clear diagnosis of the challenge at hand—what problem are you solving, and why it matters. It offers simple, practical guidance that people can use in their day-to-day decisions. It’s grounded in customer outcomes and shaped by perspectives from across the organisation, not just the leadership team.
Great strategies also have explicit hypotheses. They acknowledge that nothing is certain and build in feedback loops to test assumptions and adjust course as needed. These mechanisms turn a static plan into a dynamic tool for decision-making.
At its core, a strategy is about clarity. It should help people understand not just what to do, but also what not to do, enabling focus and alignment at every level of the business.
The 90-Day Strategy Cycle
In the world of AI, where technologies evolve daily, traditional strategic cycles are dinosaurs. They’re too slow, too rigid, and too disconnected from reality. That’s why a 90-day strategy cycle is so powerful—it enables organisations to stay agile, test hypotheses, and adapt quickly.
The cycle begins with situational awareness. This is all about understanding what’s happening in the world around you. What trends are shaping the economy, technology, and society? What’s happening operationally with your employees, suppliers, and partners? And most importantly, what’s going on with your customers—their needs, their priorities, their decision drivers?
With that foundation, you move to choosing. In response to what’s happening, what will you do—and what won’t you do? This phase is where bold trade-offs come into play. It’s about focusing on the capabilities, offerings, and partnerships that matter most, and adapting your ways of working to support those choices. The result is a strategic intent that’s both inspiring and measurable, providing clear direction for the organisation.
Finally, there’s execution. This is where strategy meets action. Define the outcomes you need to achieve in the next 90 days, make trade-offs explicit, and set metrics to steer progress. This isn’t about micromanaging tasks; it’s about ensuring every effort aligns with the overarching goals.
Making Strategy a Habit
The power of the 90-day cycle lies in its continuous nature. It’s not just about setting a strategy once—it’s about revisiting, refining, and re-committing to it regularly.
Quarterly strategy reviews provide an opportunity to assess what’s changed, evaluate progress, and prioritise the next set of outcomes.
Weekly updates keep teams aligned and address blockers in real-time.
Monthly retrospectives ensure you’re learning from what worked and what didn’t, so you can improve with each cycle.
This rhythm creates a living strategy—one that evolves as the world does.
Let’s Leave Fluffy Words Behind
2025 isn’t the year for half-baked strategies or corporate buzzwords. If you want to thrive in a world driven by AI and relentless change, you need a strategy that drives decisions, inspires action, and evolves constantly. Ditch the jargon, embrace the 90-day cycle, and start building strategies that actually work.
Because in this fast-moving world, the only thing worse than having no strategy is having one that doesn’t deliver.
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