Every organization is already following a strategy. The question is whether it is still the smartest move available.

Strategy has traditionally helped us decide where to go, align the organization and turn intent into action.

That still matters. But something has changed.

When reality changes faster than the plan, we cannot rely on strategy being formed first and then cascaded through the organization. The work itself reveals changes, tensions and opportunities that could not have been known in advance.

So strategy has another job: help us see where we actually are, what the situation now makes possible, and whether what we are doing is still our best move.

That changes the rhythm:

Make your bet. Read what happens. Think twice. Choose again.

It also changes how we think about organizations. Alignment is one way of integrating in advance. When the pieces move too quickly to integrate in advance, integration has to continue through the work.

Strategy becomes something we live: visible in the choices we make, continuously tested against reality, and held together by people contributing accountably to something larger than themselves.

When it works, people have both freedom to perform and opportunity to contribute.

Patterns of Work takes that thinking further: from strategy that can live to the organization that lets it live.

That’s the thinking. The fuller story is in Strategy Must Be Lived and Patterns of Work. Find both from the Writing page.