Strategy looks tidy in a deck but the real work is messy

Strategy looks tidy in a deck but the real work is messy

Strategy often looks elegant on slides. Clear frameworks. Logical steps. Confident conclusions.
But anyone who has lived through implementation knows the truth:

The real work of strategy is messy, emotional, and slow.

A few years ago, I worked with a business struggling with its margins. During a strategy review, the leader referenced Kotter’s idea of a “burning platform”, the belief that real change requires urgency.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, at a time when urgency feels permanently switched on.

Because the real question isn’t how strategies are agreed.
It’s what happens after the deck is signed off.

Strategy is easy, implementation is hard.

We often say strategy is 20 per cent and implementation is 80 per cent. Coming up with ideas is rarely the hard part. The hard part is deciding what not to do and then doing the difficult, often uncomfortable work of follow-through.

Over time, the word strategy has started to feel strangely weightless to me.
Too clean. Too polished. As though it lives in PowerPoint rather than in real organisations.

I’ve started to think about strategy less as a plan, and more as decision-making:

• How decisions are made
• Who gets to make them
• And crucially, the state people are in when they make them

Decision-making under stress looks very different from decision-making when people feel calm, safe, and clear. Nervous systems matter. If we want better outcomes, we have to pay attention not just to the choices themselves, but to the conditions in which those choices are made.

Where strategy really lives: In implementation

This is where the real skill comes in.

In a recent conversation, the distinction between “Operator” and “Consultant” came up and it stayed with me.

Operators need:

• judgement
• empathy
• people skills
• a feel for timing

They need to know when to push and when to pause.

None of this shows up neatly in a deck. Yet this is where most strategies succeed or fail.
Implementation is less about control and more about sensing what is happening and responding intelligently.

The role of management consulting in the age of AI

Which brings me to a bigger question:

what is the role of management consulting in the age of AI?

My hunch is that the value won’t come from ever-larger slide decks.

It will come from helping organisations:

• move faster
• learn quicker
• adjust in real time

Smaller bets.
Real feedback.
Fewer “final” plans.
More rolling up of sleeves.

Less perfection.
More momentum.

That feels much closer to the work that actually helps organisations navigate uncertainty and make strategy real.

I’m curious: How are you seeing strategy and management evolve in your world?

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