Re-learning the essence of strategy

In an age overrun by strategic blueprints, playbooks, and canvas models, it's dangerously easy to mistake tools for truth. Every consultant has a new matrix. Every executive offsite generates another set of PowerPoint diagrams. But there’s a quiet crisis: many organisations are overtooled and underaligned. Sophisticated plans can often fail to move people, guide action, or adapt to reality.

The real essence of strategy—especially in volatile, complex markets—isn't buried in spreadsheets or presentation decks. It’s found in the less tangible but infinitely more powerful trio of shared values, shared purpose, and shared principles.

Shared Values: The Invisible Hand of Organisational Control

Shared values act as an internal compass. They don't just influence behaviour—they govern it when no one is watching. They’re the cultural DNA that shapes what’s celebrated, what’s punished, and what’s quietly ignored. In many respects, shared values are more effective than hierarchical control mechanisms. Why? Because they work even when the org chart doesn’t—they cut through functions and siloes.

When teams share core values, they make aligned decisions instinctively. Without values, strategy is brittle. With them, it’s resilient.

Shared Purpose: From Confusion to Coherence

Purpose isn't about brand slogans or motivational posters. It’s about real focus and inspiration. Purpose aligns disparate operations, simplifies priorities, and fuels ingenuity and commitement in the face of adversity. When shared, it gives people a reason that transcends personal goals.

In markets marked by disruption and unpredictability, a compelling shared purpose enables organisations to pivot without losing their soul. It replaces the need for micromanagement with the freedom of clarity to drive strategy.

Shared Principles: The True North for Decision-Making

If purpose provides direction, and values anchor behaviour, then principles govern how we make choices. In high-ambiguity environments, principles are the ultimate test for decision-making—especially when the rules are unclear, or the playbook is obsolete.

Sir Alex Younger, former Chief of MI6, drove this point home at the CogX Festival in 2023. He highlighted how principle-led strategy allowed the intelligence service to navigate profoundly complex, high-stakes environments—where outcomes were uncertain and instructions couldn’t always be relayed in real time. Principles didn’t just guide decisions—they enabled autonomous yet expected action.

It’s no coincidence that the military does the same. When communication lines go down, or things go wrong, or where the unexpected occurs, it’s not Standard Operating Procedures (SOP manuals) that drives behaviour—it’s shared values, mission clarity, and guiding principles.

What Matters Most Is Often Ignored

Despite their criticality, shared values, purpose, and principles are often treated as HR window dressing. Why? Because they’re hard to define, harder to align, and almost impossible to quantify. But the irony is stark: these are the only things that scale good judgment. Strategy doesn’t fail because the tool was wrong—it fails because the people using it were misaligned.

Building Strategic Coherence: A Leadership Imperative

Creating alignment around values, purpose, and principles isn’t a comms exercise—it’s a leadership challenge. It requires:

Time, to build real relationships between people to the extent that they know eachother well, how they think, act, their needs and bahaviours, theior fears and beliefs.
Deep understanding among senior leaders, not just agreement on goals but alignment on trade-offs, non-negotiables, and the lived culture.
Visibility, of preferred behaviurs, attitudes and decision-making
Investment in strategic education, so that practitioners across functions understand not just what to do, but why it matters.
Capability building, so that teams can make sound, timely decisions when plans meet the complexity and chaos of real markets in real-time.

Strategy for a Fragmented World

Today’s markets are anything but predictable. Customer behaviours shift with each new disruption. Traditional playbooks grow obsolete faster than they can be refreshed. In this environment, adaptive organisations don’t just execute strategy—they embody it, embrace it, it's part of their DNA

And embodiment doesn’t come from frameworks. It comes from the hard work of forging common values, a compelling purpose, and shared principles that allow independent yet coherent action—especially when the next challenge or opportunity presebnts itself.

Must read recommendation.

"The Grand Strategist: The Revolutionary New Management System" was written by Mike Davidson and published in 1995. This concise book offers insights into strategic management, aiming to make strategic thinking accessible to managers. It is structured around four key sections: Mission, Competition, Performance, and Change, providing readers with practical guidance on applying strategic principles to various aspects of their roles. It's one of the best and most concise books on strategy I've ever read.

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