Stop the Cruel Practice of Strategy Battery Hens

For someone who has worked his whole life in strategy, I don’t like it very much. Or I should say, I don’t like what it’s becoming very much.

Even with reports that clients have never valued strategy so highly, I feel a sense of disappointment.

And there’s one key reason for it.

Strategy has seemingly forgotten what it’s there to do. I was trained to believe there’s only 3 rules to remember.

1. It's a creative discipline.
   
2. It exists to create change.
3. It means nothing on its own.

But right now, even with the discipline literally overflowing with different ‘flavours’ of strategy and strategists, I still don’t see a lot of proper change going on. 

And by ‘proper change’, allow me to quote the words of Professor Lawrence Freedman – author of ‘A History of Strategy’ – because he not only says it better than I ever could, it makes me look almost semi-authoritative.

“Strategy is about revolution. Anything else is just tactics.”

Good eh? And that’s why the lack of change despite all this ‘strategy’ has confused me. All this ability but so little to show for it.

So I wondered if it was down to ‘creative companies’ deciding to act more like consultancies. That the headwinds facing the industry meant they’d decided to explore new ways to operate?

And while I’d sort-of get that decision ... I wondered if that meant all those creative companies were now going to stop making creative stuff forever and just become ‘companies’. 

How was that going to work? I mean, their entire business model is based on making work. Their buildings are full of people who are there to make work.

And there’s now as many consultancy competitors as there are agencies in adland ... so were they just swapping one challenging situation for another?

So I thought maybe I was wrong.

Maybe these companies do want to make work ...Maybe they are still proud members and believers in the creative industry.

Maybe they are here to make work that is about revolution, not tactics.

That must be it ... I mean, why else would they get their strategists to produce 150-page decks for every client meeting, filled to the brim with charts, ecosystems, frameworks and playbooks?

Surely that’s a sign of a company who sees strategy as enabling creativity for change?

Then I got my hand on a few of those presentations ... and what I found within those beautifully designed, 150 pages of thinking, were little-to-no mention of creativity whatsoever ... and anything about audiences came over as simplistic, generalistic and rather contrived.

In essence, those decks talked a lot but said very little.

I was stumped.

“What on earth were all these talented strategists doing?”

And then on a cold Wednesday night, I finally worked it out.

They weren’t being tasked with writing strategy for change, they were being ordered to churn out remuneration justification landfill.

Now I don’t know who is ultimately responsible for this attitude ...

Is it the agencies who are so desperate to be seen as a ‘serious business partner’ they mimic their clients’ without realising they’re more valuable as a well-informed outsider than another blinkered insider? 

Is it the clients who view their agencies as ‘suppliers’ so expect them to do whatever they want, rather than what they need? 

Or is the strategy discipline as a whole ... who are so desperate for ‘intellectual respect’, they spend their time trying to validate their brilliance rather than do things that enable others to create something brilliant?

Maybe it’s all 3 ... who knows?! Thank God not everyone is like this.

Thank God there are clients out there who turn to their agencies to use creativity for change in amazing ways. Who want strategy to open opportunities rather than just repackage what they’ve already got and done ... just with fancier words and charts.

When strategy is done well, it has a real role in creating commercial, cultural and creative value.

Strategy helped Roblox go from niche player to the single most played game by kids and teens across America. 

Strategy moved Loog from kiddie musical instrument manufacturer to a community for young musicians. 

Strategy lifted Vollebak from outdoor apparel company to radical fabric innovation company.

Strategy can do a lot if it it’s allowed to. If it’s enabled to.

And as much as there’s many we can blame our situation on, the reality is what happens next is up to us. 

So I hope we, as a discipline, decide to set ourselves free from the teeny-tiny cages that keep us – and revolutionary, creatively-driven change - restrained.