‘If I had the key members of your executive suite all in the same room, would they all be able to articulate the essence of your business strategy clearly and consistently?” I asked the executive vice president of strategy.

“Probably not,” she replied. “But I do know we need a new one, because the current one isn’t working.”

I hear this quite a lot. It’s fine to want a new strategy, but it doesn’t make sense to move to a new strategy if you’re not completely clear about the current one, because formulating a new strategy starts with defining a strategic problem culled from the current strategy.

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