My clients (old, big companies with legacy brands) are often in this spot. But I also find that there are no incentives and rewards to take on the trade-offs, so the can gets kicked down the road for another couple years. This seems to be getting worse as very few leaders believe they will stay at a company long enough to see the rewards of the painful trade-offs. Do you see this as well, Roger?
What I often see - arguably with bad CEOs - is pure denial. They blame any gap in performance on a one-time event (Trump, Brexit...) without ever articulating how this event impacted the performance.
In other times they move the goalpost to even deny the gap in performance exists!! For instance they wanted to grow by 25%, the business grew by 5% and it becomes: "we have grown for the 5th year in a row". Hurrah! And if you remind them that was not the objective you are told that "you are negative". Sigh.
Then of course there is the good old excuse that the strategy is the right one but execution failed and we just need to try harder. I called that the Passchendaele strategy (or Verdun when I advise French clients) in reference to WWI when soldiers would rush out of their trenches, be butchered by machine guns, crawl back to the trenches only to hear the officers say they'd try harder the next day.
To be honest I've rarely been successful convincing clients they need to act by showing a sequence of events (even if in all cases I was proven right, which makes it even more frustrating). I usually hear they don't believe the future will be that different, for instance that people one day will prefer to use the internet for banking rather than go to a branch. Re-sigh. (it's not really a consolation but it seems it happens to McKinsey too, see @pwilmott's post https://substack.com/home/post/p-188997484)
Thank you Roger, I think everyone will recognise the situation you describe, when the plan isn't working but there is no clear signal why. Similar to the logical approach of the strategy cascade, another way to diagnose the problem is to look at it as an argument, and identify which of the original premises may no longer be true, or at least weak. That approach also work best when you define at the outset what the invalidation threshold for a strategic premise is, and set up a mechanism to track it. More often than not, the issue is invalidation of the premises rather than failure in execution.
I agree, Brian. That is why I say that the most important question is not what is true but rather what would have to be true. I advocate for taking the WWHTBT statement for the chosen option and keep asking every day whether WWHTBT is still true or not. And if it isn't, it is time to change strategy now, not later.
This mirrors my own advisory experience - strategic stuckness is perhaps the most common and persistent challenge I encounter with clients. The gap between recognizing a fitness mismatch and actually doing something meaningful about it is where most organizations get trapped.
I also find that the best strategy conversations happen around a table, talking through the logic as a narrative rather than walking through a slide deck. A well-constructed reverse engineering story forces logical coherence, surfaces hidden assumptions and not-made-choices for example, and travels through an organization in ways that a deck of bullets simply cannot.
That said, I'd push the adaptability point one step further: waiting for a mismatch to appear before building adaptive capacity is already too late. Both internal and external environments are inherently fluid - shifting sometimes gradually, sometimes with jarring speed - and many organizations are structurally unprepared for that reality because adaptability was never deliberately designed into how they are managed.
This is precisely what shapes my work with leaders: not just diagnosing the current mismatch, but equipping them with the thinking tools - assumption testing, scenario building, course-correction disciplines - to engage continuously with a changing environment, rather than periodically waking up to find themselves stuck.
Agreed and I harken back to my note to Brian above. The tool I use is WWHTBT. And I am proactive in suggesting that an executive start every morning with asking whether WWHTBT is still true or not. If anything isn't - do something now, not later.
One lived reality for me I think you cover with the strategy cascade, but would just emphasize the need for a COMPLETE strategy cascade. If you ever work for a company that has made a clear strategic choice (excellent) but never paused to examine the set of interconnected capabilities + operating system required to realize it, you almost certainly end up with the paralysis you mention above re: trade-offs. The result is brutal.
You are correct. It is brutal. Most strategy is seen as either only the first box or only the first three boxes of the Strategy Choice Cascade. And that is why most of them fail entirely.
The topic of "control limits," or, as you've elegantly stated, the "canary in the coalmine for your What Would Have to Be True? conditions," is one of the key mechanisms to define how quickly one should act, Roger.
The other point I find crucial is reverse-engineering the current choices across the full Strategy Choice Cascade at step two.
Doing this collaboratively is often enough to create the necessary flash of insight.
Roger, the three interlocking characteristics you describe - CAS complexity, boiling frog blindness, and painful tradeoffs - explain something I see constantly with leadership teams.
But I keep asking myself: is it genuine paralysis, or is it something more specific? These conditions may be less immobilizing than they are simply more complex than the leadership approaches most executives were trained for. The tools that got them here weren't built for a CAS. That's a different problem than being stuck, and it may point to a different solution.
Your fifth step still does the most work either way: making the future concrete enough to feel real. Leaders will tolerate a painful present indefinitely. What breaks the inertia is making the consequence imaginable.
Thank you for another piece that I'll be thinking about long after I've closed the tab.
My clients (old, big companies with legacy brands) are often in this spot. But I also find that there are no incentives and rewards to take on the trade-offs, so the can gets kicked down the road for another couple years. This seems to be getting worse as very few leaders believe they will stay at a company long enough to see the rewards of the painful trade-offs. Do you see this as well, Roger?
Yes I do. Kicking the can down the road is a key management skill for promotion in the modern business world. Sad but true.
What I often see - arguably with bad CEOs - is pure denial. They blame any gap in performance on a one-time event (Trump, Brexit...) without ever articulating how this event impacted the performance.
In other times they move the goalpost to even deny the gap in performance exists!! For instance they wanted to grow by 25%, the business grew by 5% and it becomes: "we have grown for the 5th year in a row". Hurrah! And if you remind them that was not the objective you are told that "you are negative". Sigh.
Then of course there is the good old excuse that the strategy is the right one but execution failed and we just need to try harder. I called that the Passchendaele strategy (or Verdun when I advise French clients) in reference to WWI when soldiers would rush out of their trenches, be butchered by machine guns, crawl back to the trenches only to hear the officers say they'd try harder the next day.
To be honest I've rarely been successful convincing clients they need to act by showing a sequence of events (even if in all cases I was proven right, which makes it even more frustrating). I usually hear they don't believe the future will be that different, for instance that people one day will prefer to use the internet for banking rather than go to a branch. Re-sigh. (it's not really a consolation but it seems it happens to McKinsey too, see @pwilmott's post https://substack.com/home/post/p-188997484)
Comfortable lies often trump uncomfortable truth.
Again, I agree. It is a near-universal problem. Hate to say that you need great leadership to overcome it - but I think it is true.
Thank you Roger, I think everyone will recognise the situation you describe, when the plan isn't working but there is no clear signal why. Similar to the logical approach of the strategy cascade, another way to diagnose the problem is to look at it as an argument, and identify which of the original premises may no longer be true, or at least weak. That approach also work best when you define at the outset what the invalidation threshold for a strategic premise is, and set up a mechanism to track it. More often than not, the issue is invalidation of the premises rather than failure in execution.
I agree, Brian. That is why I say that the most important question is not what is true but rather what would have to be true. I advocate for taking the WWHTBT statement for the chosen option and keep asking every day whether WWHTBT is still true or not. And if it isn't, it is time to change strategy now, not later.
This mirrors my own advisory experience - strategic stuckness is perhaps the most common and persistent challenge I encounter with clients. The gap between recognizing a fitness mismatch and actually doing something meaningful about it is where most organizations get trapped.
I also find that the best strategy conversations happen around a table, talking through the logic as a narrative rather than walking through a slide deck. A well-constructed reverse engineering story forces logical coherence, surfaces hidden assumptions and not-made-choices for example, and travels through an organization in ways that a deck of bullets simply cannot.
That said, I'd push the adaptability point one step further: waiting for a mismatch to appear before building adaptive capacity is already too late. Both internal and external environments are inherently fluid - shifting sometimes gradually, sometimes with jarring speed - and many organizations are structurally unprepared for that reality because adaptability was never deliberately designed into how they are managed.
This is precisely what shapes my work with leaders: not just diagnosing the current mismatch, but equipping them with the thinking tools - assumption testing, scenario building, course-correction disciplines - to engage continuously with a changing environment, rather than periodically waking up to find themselves stuck.
Agreed and I harken back to my note to Brian above. The tool I use is WWHTBT. And I am proactive in suggesting that an executive start every morning with asking whether WWHTBT is still true or not. If anything isn't - do something now, not later.
One lived reality for me I think you cover with the strategy cascade, but would just emphasize the need for a COMPLETE strategy cascade. If you ever work for a company that has made a clear strategic choice (excellent) but never paused to examine the set of interconnected capabilities + operating system required to realize it, you almost certainly end up with the paralysis you mention above re: trade-offs. The result is brutal.
You are correct. It is brutal. Most strategy is seen as either only the first box or only the first three boxes of the Strategy Choice Cascade. And that is why most of them fail entirely.
The topic of "control limits," or, as you've elegantly stated, the "canary in the coalmine for your What Would Have to Be True? conditions," is one of the key mechanisms to define how quickly one should act, Roger.
The other point I find crucial is reverse-engineering the current choices across the full Strategy Choice Cascade at step two.
Doing this collaboratively is often enough to create the necessary flash of insight.
Agreed entirely, Mike. Those are important tools at the disposal of the thoughtful strategist.
Roger, the three interlocking characteristics you describe - CAS complexity, boiling frog blindness, and painful tradeoffs - explain something I see constantly with leadership teams.
But I keep asking myself: is it genuine paralysis, or is it something more specific? These conditions may be less immobilizing than they are simply more complex than the leadership approaches most executives were trained for. The tools that got them here weren't built for a CAS. That's a different problem than being stuck, and it may point to a different solution.
Your fifth step still does the most work either way: making the future concrete enough to feel real. Leaders will tolerate a painful present indefinitely. What breaks the inertia is making the consequence imaginable.
Thank you for another piece that I'll be thinking about long after I've closed the tab.
Glad I spurred some productive thinking. And I agree. None of what is required above is taught in the business education system - none.
I really appreciate your writing. Your texts are always profound and fulfilling. I can’t find that quality elsewhere
You have made my week, Fabiano. Thanks for the lovely sentiments. All the best, R