Strategy House Blog

The Cornerstone Of Strategy

I want you to think of the concept of strategy through the lens of a journey, as it will help illuminate the critical aspects of strategy. Imagine planning a trip.

The first step in any journey starts with figuring out your purpose or “Why.” Your Why is like the compass for your journey. It’s the reason you’re traveling, whether it’s for work, a family trip, or a getaway with someone special. Knowing your Why keeps you moving forward, even when the road gets rough.

Once you have figured out your Why, the next step is to define your boundary conditions to help you narrow down your choices. What are boundary conditions? These are the non-negotiable criteria, your must-haves, to make the journey a good one. If, for example, you’re planning a family trip, you might look for a quiet beach, good hotels, places that are safe for kids, and fun stuff to do, like kayaking or bungee jumping. These conditions help to reduce your choices; they act as a filter and guide you from a plethora of options—like Dubai, Paris, or New York—to the one that aligns with your needs. Only with a defined purpose and established boundary conditions does the question of “where” — your ultimate destination — come to light. This destination is the perfect picture you have in your mind of where you or your group wants to end up or where your organization aspires to reach.

These two critical determinants — purpose and destination or vision — are the cornerstone of strategy formulation, informing subsequent strategic decisions. In this context, strategy is the art of plotting your course and marshaling resources (or cultivating capabilities) to fulfill your objectives.

Strategy as a journey also connotes that strategy is not static. It is an ongoing process that needs to be adapted as the world around you changes. While your destination might be fixed, the route might change in response to fresh insights, unforeseen challenges, and new opportunities. Does it mean that strategies will have to change with every fad? No. Although great strategies have a measure of adaptability and flexibility built into them, they don’t follow every fad or “change like shifting shadows.” If that were the case, the organization would lose its identity.

Great strategies have a non-negotiable core (usually related to the belief about delivering superior value to their customers) and a negotiable periphery (freedom about how the value is delivered). This core belief helps them decide which changes to respond to and which to discard. Take, for example, a company whose non-negotiable core is to disrupt industries and democratize innovation. This will help the company decide which industries to target, the products to launch, etc. These decisions would be driven by the belief that they can disrupt those industries with innovative services. If they cannot disrupt the industry and democratize innovation, they will bypass the “opportunity.”