Short on strategy

Earlier in my career, I thought a strategy was a presentation with forty slides.

I worried nobody would believe me unless my deck looked well-researched. I needed mission statements, revenue projections, market trends, etc.

(Note: I worked with several former Bain consultants when I started making strategy decks.)

In truth, I was hiding behind the data. A good strategy can be expressed in a sentence or two. But distilling to that extent is far harder than filling reams of slides with graphs and fluff.

Now, every time I write a strategy document, I strive to make it shorter.

Inspired by the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, my current effort fits on one Confluence page. It defines:

• The key obstacles to our success.
• Our fundamental bet – what we believe is true, which influences our actions.
• A short set of guiding policies.
• A high-level action plan, which is supported by quarterly OKRs (tracked elsewhere).

As a modern-day Blaise Pascal might say: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter strategy.”