So what if you didn't have a strategy?
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So what if you didn't have a strategy?
Most business conversations about strategy assume you need one. But that assumption is worth questioning — because not every organization does. Knowing when strategy is necessary, when it is not, and what happens if you confuse the two, is itself a strategic skill.
What strategy actually is
Before we discuss when you need one, let us agree on what strategy is. Strategy is the plan through which you will accomplish your current mission by creating a unique and valuable market position. That definition carries weight. It implies a mission worth pursuing, a market position that does not yet exist, and a deliberate plan to close the distance between the two.
And critically — accomplishing your current mission should be a stretch. It should not be easy. It should bring about large-scale change. That is exactly when strategy becomes necessary.
Two captains. Two completely different situations.
Consider a ship captain standing on the bridge, planning a two-to-three day sail from Capri to Sardinia. The route is established. The conditions are predictable. The crew has done it before. That captain does not need a strategy — he needs a solid operational plan, a weather briefing, and a good navigator.
Now consider a captain preparing to sail from England to southern Chile — a ninety-day crossing of the Atlantic with a vessel and crew that have never attempted anything like it. Different waters. Different risks. Unknown conditions. Nothing in the crew's experience fully prepares them for what lies ahead. That captain absolutely needs strategic planning: where do we stop, how do we manage supplies, what do we do when conditions turn against us, and how do we hold the crew together over three months at sea?
Same profession. Same vessel type. Completely different need for strategic thinking.
The question is not "are you a captain?" The question is "how far are you sailing, and into what kind of water?"
When you genuinely do not need a strategy
Companies that are myopic in their vision — focused only on next quarter or this calendar year — typically do not have the aptitude for a three-to-five year strategic lookout. And given that very short-term focus, they do not actually need one. What they want is incremental improvement: five percent growth in sales, three percent reduction in operating cost, half a percent of additional margin. Achievable. Measurable. Familiar.
To do that, you do not need a strategy. You need an operational excellence plan.
This is why some operations experts view strategy as an unnecessary theoretical exercise. If you know what you are currently doing and you know what needs to be done to do it slightly better — regardless of the competitive landscape — strategy can feel like overhead. A thorough operational excellence plan, tightly executed, will get you there faster.
So if you are not on a mission to accomplish something that stretches your current limits, strategy is not your tool. An operational excellence plan that focuses on doing the same thing a little bit better is the right answer.
The red flag hiding inside the comfort zone
Here is where it gets uncomfortable.
If you are in a position where only incremental improvement is needed, it usually means your industry is mature. It does not require much change. You are squeezing more juice out of an engine you know well. That sounds like stability. It is actually a warning sign.
Mature industries that require little change and reward small tweaks are precisely the industries most vulnerable to disruption. Not from the players inside them — from forces outside them that nobody inside saw coming.
Think of Kodak in the years before digital cameras became mainstream. The film business was mature, predictable, and highly optimized. Kodak knew how to make film better than anyone on earth. They had no strategic reason to worry — and that was exactly the problem. The disruption did not come from inside the frame. It came from a different technology redefining what a photograph even was.
Think of Blockbuster before Netflix. The video rental business was profitable, the locations were established, and the operational model was well understood. Blockbuster knew how to run stores. Netflix did not compete on stores — it competed on a completely different model of access and convenience. By the time Blockbuster recognized what was happening, the window had closed.
If your industry is so mature that you are focused entirely on squeezing out a little more margin, you should be less comfortable, not more. The absence of strategic urgency is not a sign of health. It is a sign that you are about to be surprised.
The pattern you are not watching
Robert Simons, in his Levers of Control model for strategy execution, identifies four Ps of strategy: Perspective, Position, Plan, and Pattern. Most organizations spend their time on the first three. The fourth — Pattern — is where disruption hides.
Pattern means watching your industry for emerging behaviors, signals, and movements that could redefine the rules of the game. Not just tracking competitors doing the same thing slightly differently. Watching for the Kodak moment — the signal that arrives before the disruption does.
If you are running an operational excellence plan and nothing else, you are not watching for patterns. You are optimizing the engine while the road itself is changing underneath you.
So — do you need a strategy?
Ask yourself one question: am I on a mission that stretches my current limits and requires a fundamentally different market position to accomplish?
If yes — you need a strategy. Not an inspiring slide deck. A real, sequenced strategic plan that connects your mission to your market position through deliberate choices about where to compete and how to win.
If no — you need an operational excellence plan. Own that choice. Execute it with discipline. Get the incremental gains you are after.
But if you choose the operational path, do not stop watching the horizon. Because the captain who is focused on squeezing efficiency out of a familiar route is the one most likely to miss the storm that is forming three days out.
Strategy is not always necessary. Awareness always is.
Abdulla Al-Awadi is the founder of TheStrategist.me — a 12-process AI-powered strategy OS built for business leaders who are on a mission that requires more than incremental improvement. If you are ready to close the gap between where you are and where you are trying to go, start here.