Strategy’ used to be the sine qua non of top management. But in an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world, it’s a catastrophically sluggish, constraining approach to sense making.
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. – Mike Tyson
Much has been said and written about how Nokia missed the smartphone revolution despite their supposed strategy of “Connecting People”. 1
And how Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laughed at the iPhone in 2007, then in a ‘strategic’ scramble, bought the rump of Nokia’s handset business for $7.2Bn in 2013 – an investment that dramatically missed the market, and was ditched two years later in a $7.6Bn write-off.
https://geoffmarlow.substack.com/p/from-strategy-to-sense-making