How To Think About Strategy In One Minute

Strategy isn’t excel sheets or slide decks, it’s differentiation.

It isn’t a one-off decision either, but a GPS system for your company.

Being strategic is making decisions or acting in a way that gives you an edge.

Strategy is the path you take to stand out in a sea of competition.

It’s a gamble on the future that stems from insights born of experience, intuition or research.

Like Microsoft believing in the 70s that the future of computing lay in operating systems that ran on many devices as opposed to one.

Or Spotify betting that folks would rather pay a subscription to access a music library than buy individual songs.

And when Apple went all-in on phones without physical keyboards at a time when we couldn’t fathom life without them, that too was a bet on the future.

Strategy involves taking a risk. You’re either right and everyone else doesn’t know it yet. Or you’re crazy and you’re going to find out the hard way.

But if you are right, you’re poised to reap the rewards that come with being exceptional.

So the next time you’re evaluating a strategy, ask a simple question:

How does this make us different?