What is Strategy For? | Mike Jones

Most organisations don’t fail at strategy because they lack ambition. They fail because they skip the one thing that has to come first: an honest read of reality. In this solo reflection, Mike Jones pulls together the strongest themes from the recent run of conversations and the client work that’s been sharpening my thinking, from strategic blind spots to the quiet damage caused by “organisational disassociation”, the gap between what leaders want to be true and what the environment will actually allow. 

He talks about why orientation beats decision-making and how overreaching plans create cynicism among senior leaders and the people expected to execute strategy. From there,  he moves into strategy communication and the trap of amplifying noise: big launches, polished narratives and endless repetition that still leave teams unclear about what to do. The alternative is intent-led strategic leadership, creating space for interpretation, context and back-briefing so people can make tough choices and adapt without being micromanaged. 

Then he goes deeper: what is strategy for? If strategy is mainly governance for the board, or an external projection of virtue that marketing can polish, it becomes theatre rather than a useful discipline. He offers a different frame: strategy as the practice that enables organisations to pursue viability and advantage in a changing political and economic environment, tightening the loop between hypotheses and surprise as the world evolves. 

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Transcript

Strategy Starts With Reality

Mike Jones 0:00

Most people do think of strategy that way. Developing a new strategy. Strategic blind spots. When strategy meets reality. Strategy and innovation. In the strategy world. Drive their strategic goals. And welcome back to Strategy Meets Reality Podcast. Welcome back to the Strategy Meets Reality Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Jones. And today I'm not joined by anyone. This is the 10th episode, this is season two. So I thought I would come on and give my reflections a bit about you know previous episodes that we've had, but also some things that are on my mind with strategy at the moment from recent experience of being at a conference recently and client work. The podcast just the point is doing really well. We're increasing in our um viewership, which is great to see. So I appreciate everyone that takes their time to to listen and engage with the podcast. And if there's anything you want me to cover that I haven't or any particular focus, please just get in touch with me either on the LinkedIn uh platform that we put these on or for anything, really. Email me. The emails are on everything. Just get in touch and more than happy to take those considerations in. And also, if you've got any ideas for guests that you think would be great on this show, please get in touch. I do get spammed a lot with agencies trying to force people on me. Uh and they're never really a good fit. You know, we're really focused. This is about strategy, about organization and strategic leadership. So we need to really keep focused on those. So if you've got any great guests, please bring them forward to me. Update on the book. The book is going well. I've got first part out to beater readers. I think my beater readers will take the time to give me feedback. Um, I kind of underestimated the the time for publishers. My fault. So uh probably be looking at um sort of end of this year, maybe start of this, start of next year. But I'm hoping end of this year will be good. I've got most of the book pretty much squared now. I'm just trying to tetovate and um and you know, really make sure that I'm not losing my voice in there, but also trying to remain respectful through that. So um I'll let you know how that's getting on. But again, I'm constantly writing all the time. It's the joys of writing a book, I suppose. I've got loads of ideas that keep coming to me, some that will make it into the book, some don't. So I'm always writing articles, which I've always struggled with before, but I think just having having all these great conversations all the time about strategy and writing and exploring it, it's just giving me loads of ideas and material that I can just translate into articles. So please have a look at those on my Substack or on my LinkedIn newsletter. Um yeah, that's pretty much all the updates. I hope everyone's had a great Easter break. Uh, so the episodes, this is number 10. So we've had nine from season two already, and we've had some absolutely fantastic guests. I'm just kicking off with Stephen Bungay, um, all through to Sarah Kernian, recent ones with Joel, really good one. They're all on there. Um, so have a look. So, what I wanted to do is reflect through like what was the common thread for all these because they all had their unique perspective. So I urge you to go listen if you haven't listened to some of them, go listen, listen because all I all bring their unique perspective, and I like the way um I like the way I run the podcasts. You please feedback everything differently, but I like the way that is it's not structured, we go into conversation because it really emerges some really, really key insights and uh and different perspectives. What I like, but the the the key thread that's happened for the nine episodes is that you know their background seems to land on the same point, which is you understanding the situation you're in precedes everything else. I think this really goes back to some points I've made before where I really challenge about it, you know, it's about reality first and aspiration second. You need to understand where you are, and Sarah more sharply put this she said you can't out decide a misaligned orientation. And I really like the way Matt Finch goes deeper into the body about this, and he talks about the gut, the aesthetic perception that happens before rational thought kicks in, you know. And Garen even brought this in about really looking underneath beneath the surface, and Joel talked about the professionalization trap that creates false certainty, and all these are really pointing at the same thing around this must understand the situation. And I do find more increasingly that organizations go through this thing called organizational disassociation. Um, what I mean by that is it is a is a cognitive trap, it becomes a dissonance between what I want reality to be and what actually reality is. And the problem is that when we have this disassociation, this gap starts to appear, it really uh erodes the sort of I suppose rational thought was that probably not the right word, but you miss what's actually afforded to you in the external environment. It's like me, if I was like going, I'm gonna I'm gonna go run a marathon tomorrow because I think I can, but in reality, the furthest I ran is to the fridge to get a Mars bar is not really afforded to me in that sense. It's not realistic for me to go there. And and you see this because then because it's not realistic, organizations overstretch themselves. They go for these things, and I suppose it's the the adage around this whole big audacious goals or this great ambition that they they they stretch for, but they haven't got the resources, the capability to go for it, and they then destabilize themselves. And this is where you you create this cynicism between the senior leadership or all the people making the strategy and the people that have to execute the strategy because they're looking at it and going, Well, that's that's freaking mental. Why are we why are we going for that? We haven't got the ability to go for it, and you they build up the cynicism and they then just do they just respond to what they're going to respond to anyway, and you get this fracture happening between there isn't it there is a strategy that's being played out, it just may not be the one that you think is getting played out. It's maybe not the one that you've you've espoused, the one that you've set on the slide decks and you've given the time in the town halls. It's probably not the one that's getting played out on the ground because that there's that disassociation, that difference between actually what's reality and what what you what the organization thinks it is and thinks it can do. Yeah, so I think that's a a really key point that a lot of them brought into it is that if your orientation's wrong, the quality of your decisions are irrelevant because you're you're just solving the wrong problem faster. So I think there's a lot to be said about actually holding back and really challenging about the assumptions that you're making. Like, what is it that your organization is actually good at? And I'm not saying that in a negative sense that you know it's all rubbish, but I think there's a lot to be said about organisations really owning what they're good at. I think too often, and and I actually recently spoke about this um in a chat ad with um uh Johan Lavari. We meet up occasionally and have a good chat. He's a great bloke, and he's he was on season one. Um, and we we talked briefly about this that organisations all seem to be always chasing for what they're not good at, and they try to try to close that gap rather than really understanding and probably celebrating and using what they actually are good at and maximising that. But this orientation thing is is really crucial that we must fight the perceived orthodoxy of what we what strategy always is, and you know what it's like. You go into any sort of off-site and you know, really, really think about it. Go into these off sites, rarely do they stop and say, right, what is the current situation? What's the risk? What's the threat? What are we good at? You know, what what the what are the constraints that we have in? What are the enabling constraints that we have? Um, you know, what are we actually here for? And I mean this in the reality sense, not an aspirational sense that oh, we're here to save the world, we're not. We're here to freaking make shoes or we're here to do this. Actually, in the reality sense, like what are we here for? You know, what what what outcomes are we been trying to achieve? They don't tend to do that, they tend to go straight into what's our aspiration, what's our where where do we want to win at? What's our big goal that we want to go for? What's our vision? And they're looking ahead all the time, but they're not then thinking about where they currently are, what the ground they're on. Like when we was talking to Eric Sean, he was talking about you start with the observation and terrain. You must think about that. And and Lassie talked about you know the hidden assumptions that form the invisible foundation for strategy. You you must understand those things, you must understand where you are, what you're good at, all those things, the constraints that you're under. Because once you understand that, and I'm not saying remove ambition, of course we're gonna, but ambition is grounded by where you are, not where you you feel you need to be. You need to go from there from the from where you are, and then you can start to see what's what is afforded to you. What's the trajectory you want to go to? So, what's the next steps you can take? And then you you take those steps. You can there's the next horizon, you can reorientate. Okay, we've done that. Okay, what what where do we need to go here? Where where what small experiments do we need to take in place to understand what we need to do next and where we can go? So I think really we can't underestimate the need for starting with reality, not a false sense of misguided aspiration. And I and I will get people challenge me about aspiration because I think strategies fall into this trap where it's all about dreams, and unfortunately, it's not from my perspective anyway. I'm up for a debate. From there, I think the other key thread was around that sort of the the trust and communication and agency, but more about the interpretation. I've written about this quite a bit about the interpretation, how important it is. Um you know, David Tolly's entire episodes about how narrative and storytelling can shape how people receive and act on direction. Um, and we saw similar things echo from Jason's episode around building that trust and how do we transfer that um that direction onto them. And again, the same with Stephen Bungay. Um, talking he took a lot from Von Mockter and Mission Command, it's all about how do we give the directive, how do we tell them what to achieve and why, uh and not do the how. And that's quite hard for some leaders to fall into that trap and not give the how. But I think it's the key thing is the interpretation. I see it a lot when people have got a strategy, uh, they've got direction, they they they spend it's almost like a performance, they spend a lot of money, and a worse I've seen, and I don't know if I've shared this story on here before, or worse I've seen, I was invited to a strategy launch. I wasn't part of the strategy. Um and but I was invited because I was doing some other work, and they had a stage and all the leaders, and the leaders came on, and there was like freaking like pyrotechnics going off and all this stuff, and they stood up there and they they talked about this um so-called strategy, but it wasn't strategy, it was it was just um marketing, it was it was just a you know I don't even I can't even explain what it is without getting angry, but um it was just it was just nonsense. But all it was is telling them it was a pure amplify of all this information to the people, and it was almost just then expected that they would automatically understand it and go off and start doing things, and I think that's where the breakdown happens because there was no space at any point really, apart from you get some people ask a question, some of those questions are relevant or irrelevant, it don't matter, but they'll get some questions and they'll get some rehearsed party line back. But there's not genuine space to challenge, there's not genuine space to to for those people to look at it and think, okay, what what are they asking and what does that mean in the context that I'm working in? I think context is key in that sense. Um, and it doesn't happen. I think we we create a strategy, we make a big song and dance, we we do town halls, we amplify, and I think this is a problem. We amplify, we don't attenuate the communication, we amplify it out to everyone, and then we expect people to just understand it and deeply own it, which is not going to happen. Not in in that sense, because they've not they've not done the sort of cognitive work, even come back to like what Matt Finch was going on about in his one. We haven't done that work to really process it and understand it and what's that mean for the for their context. And I can be really cynical and say that most people will look at it and go, okay, it's another nonsense vision statement and purpose statement. It doesn't mean nothing. So I can just um I can just go back and do what I was going to do anyway, and I could justify it because it's so vague. And I did have this with a a client recently given a strategy, and I said, Well, it's probably not a strategy, but at least it gives you a sense of freedom. That thing is because the strategy is so vague, you could pretty much do what you want anyway, you could justify it, uh which isn't great uh for for an organization to be in, but it's all too common. So and I think this is uh a further deeper problem. I saw on um some things someone sent me because they didn't like one of my um articles, I can't remember which one it was, but they didn't like it because it I think it it it went against a lot of what they're probably trying to sell. And they sent me this like list of of 12 things that you know mean you've got a bad strategy or a disqualifier for strategy or some some nonsense. It was a noddy list, it was honestly it was it was horrendous. There was stuff like uh yeah, vague strategy. Well, come on, well, that's a lot of cognitive work must have been put into that list, but one of them that really stood out to me was quite surprising, was that there was a thing saying, if the strategy doesn't involve everyone, is not a strategy. That stuck with me for a little while and I was reflecting on it. So if if your strategy doesn't involve everyone, it's not strategy. Well, I think that's just absurd. That's an absurd statement. And I kind of get I kind of get what they're on about in a thing, well, I don't, but I kind of get it, that you know, everyone should be involved in it in the strategy, but do they? But it's not because you've always got in an organization, you've got this tension between um status quo and change, and in that that's where strategies bel belong, because you you you you've got parts of your organization that in the current ecosystem are just doing what they need to do and they're doing that, and they're providing the value to the external environment as it currently is. Look at um, we look at strategy, um, and strategy is all about how how do we then how do we maintain viability? So looking at the changes, so bringing in things that, okay, for us to do this, to we need to do this maneuver, which means this is going to affect or impact or take a requirement from you know this part of the organization or this function and so on. So it doesn't demand everything because some strategies is gonna demand either a capability change or new direction focus thing, or um yeah, or new focus from a part of a organization. It doesn't change everything, like just because you you're um you're you're doing a slightly different strategy, it doesn't mean it's gonna fundamentally change what the accounts department are doing. It's not funny gonna fundamentally change what some of your HR business partners are are doing, it might impact sort of the interpretation of what if there's any skills gaps, but there's not everyone's skills gaps. You're not suddenly changing everyone's capability in the organization all at once. So it's maybe the fact that you have the RD function, you know, they're not changing, they're still doing that, but maybe it's going to demand an increase or change in production. So this idea that everything's going to affect the whole organization is absurd. And I think this just comes back to the consensus reality of what people think strategy is about, where it's about this whole inspiring new thing, and it and because we're trying to evolve everyone, it becomes so bordered down, it means nothing. Now, honestly, most strategies you pick your strategy up, and I've got a golden rule here. If your strategy looks like a Greek villa, i.e., you know, you've got the purpose statement, the vision, and pillars, it's not a strategy, it's probably most of the time, absolute nonsense. And they're they're so vague that I could I could pick it up and just remove the name of that business and put something else in. They probably wouldn't tell the difference because it's always going to be the same thing in there. Oh, we're gonna um delight our customers, we're gonna, you know, look after our people, or you know, develop our staff. Um, and the other one would be improve our technology, probably more superfluous wording than I've used, or now it would be AI superiority or something, but they're all generic with that. Because I think we're we're not we're not focused on the strategy itself, we're we're just producing something. And this comes back to my point, and I've gone a long way around this, apologies, around this whole idea of the interpretation, because I think we need to worry less about the amplifying of communication. And uh I I saw something the other day, someone you know, a good good person, but they said, Oh, you need to keep communicating the strategy. I and and yes, there is warrant to that, you know, you do need to keep communicating what is the overall intent of the the organization. I keep going intent, so it's it's the trajectory, what's the next horizon, what's our n what's our sort of logic behind our strategy. But that would only get you so far. What we need to do, and I this is not a quick five minutes before the next meeting. This is you know, structurally enabled part where we give the intent to the function as in, and we give them space to understand the context, understand what's actually being asked for them. Uh, you know, and at that point, that's good enough. So I understand the the context, I understand what's asked, and it's not just surface level what's being asked, really pull it apart and go, well, you know, what is specified, what's implied in what they're asking? What are my freedoms? What are my constraints in that? And once you've really understood the context and where you are, you can back brief that. And you back brief it and go, okay, this is this is my thinking. From what your intent is, this is what you're wanting from me. This is what I think is possible, and these are the things, this is the direction I'm gonna go with this. And it's a two-way conversation, you know, and it's a bargaining. Well, if you want me to do this, I need this resource. We can't have that much, okay. Well, you know, I need this, you know, this is this is the timelines. It's a bargaining. You you're gonna do it until you're you know you're aligned and the person has got that clear direction. But what you've enabled is you've enabled that interpretation. They have taken it, they've interpreted it. Um you know what Klautzwitz talks about a lot in in his work, we used to, uh, was about that misinformation transfer, the fact that we are unique individuals, so we do perceive things on an individual level differently, but also context matters because if I'm in the if I'm in the sort of HR function, or if I'm in operations function, or I'm in this, I'm bringing a lot of different uh biases to this, a a different perception. I'm seeing, you know, I'm seeing the organization from a different angle. So those words we're using are going to be interpreted slightly different. So we need to have that space, that interpretation. And I think we could do with less of the you know uh people from internal communications uh probably hate me in this, but we could do less with that stuff because this is amplifying noise. Well, actually, what we need to do to get back is create an actual space. So it's not a case of we developed this strategy, I'm gonna amplify loads of noise at you about how great we're gonna be and you know, all this sort of marketing crap that happens. I'm gonna throw it over the wall and then just hope that you're gonna pick it up and do it, which tends not to. What you tend to see is people then um just do what they need to do anyway, but they'll just they'll just post rationalise it and justify it in their objectives that they've done that because of this. Rather than what we need to do is develop strategy. Give that direction and enable that space for interpretation. Because as Joel talked about, you know, strategy is about helping people make tough choices rather than telling them what to do. And that's what we're doing. We're enabling that. We're giving this what I want. They go away and understand that, they back brief it. Then we're aligned. And the pro key thing is then, is that because they've done that cognitive work, that as things change, as they inevitably do, they've got the foundations, a clear intent, they've got constraints, and they've got the right knowledge, skills, and experience, but they've done that cognitive work to understand it. They have all the framework in place so that as things change, they can adapt. They can adapt within the constraints and intent. So that speed of execution, that quality of execution, uh is going to be far greater than rather we've just thrown it over the wall and they don't have that. So everything stalls, they go into paralysis and they have to go to um meetings. And then we start to see a big gap between the performance. So what we expected to happen versus what actually happened, and as Stafford Beer talks about, all this does is create pathological autopesis, so self-creating diseases in the organization. That all we do is because we've got a problem, because we can't sit with a problem to understand it, we knee-jerk reaction to want to solve it. That we start to create these new functions, these new teams to try and solve a problem. And all these new teams then become self-creating, they come bigger and bigger beasts that creates more bureaucracy, makes it harder for people to actually do their jobs and just slows the whole organization down. And you see it a lot. And so a lot of this can be dealt with and held with you know good interpretation, and that doesn't just stop that one time, it's a constant feedback around what where we're going, what's happened, what's changed, and that really helps the organization, especially strategic leaders, because they can look as they're doing as a relationship, they can see that you know we've got the strategies, the hypotheses, we've got our parts of our organizations that are um conducting the maneuvers, and as they can conduct those maneuvers, they are interacting with the external environment, and this is where we're going to see you know how well our hypothesis was, you know, because we're going to decide we act, and then we're going to look, we're going to feed that forward, and we're going to go, yes, that's that's people are reacting how we're expecting to do in the external environment, or there's not. If they're not, and actually, you know, an actor's done something that we didn't expect, then we take that forward, we think, well, what's this means of strategy? What direction do we need to give? We give that direction and the organization adapts, and it's an ongoing process all the time of strategy execution. That's why they're so tightly coupled, you can't really spread them apart. It's really crucial we have this because strategy is not done, it never is done. We're just constantly trying to close the gap between hypotheses and surprise, um, which I think is a key one. So there's definitely those two key elements in there. But from all this and and and recent experience uh that I've had, um I've been quite I've been I I went over a conference and uh spoke about strategy. We're doing Pat's strategy, um Patrick Offstart and Lucy Lucy Lowe's approach, which is really good. Um, and we have Patrick on, I think he was the third guest of the first season. If you want to um listen to that, but and I've noticed through interactions with with potential clients, uh mainly, I think my clients get it, potential clients, is that it's really questioned the paradigm or or or the worldview, sorry, that they're looking at strategy. Because I've always thought, oh, it's a case of you know, I'm talking about this more dynamic approach to strategy, and maybe I need to communicate in a way, but I've started to realise that there's more underlying to this, and it really comes to the question: what is strategy for? And I think that's something that you know, as you're listening to this, to pause and maybe pause the pause the the um um the podcast and sit with that question for a moment and think about what what is strategy for? And this is something that has got me, and I think this is where the big challenge is, especially that I found speaking to potential clients. Because if you ask people leaders, I think you'll get quite an obvious sort of lazy answer, which is you know, it's about goals, achieving ambitions, all this stuff, and yeah, they're they're a part of strategy. There are things within strategy to point, but what is it for? Why do we do strategy? Why do we we put vast amounts of effort in? Why do people, you know, on the thing here, people have written loads of books about it, um, that I've read, some I like, I don't. Um, so but what is it for? And this is a challenge I have because I've looked at in organizations, and I think there is two really concerning underlying premises for this, which is one is that it's an act of governance. So if you ask people what's strategy for, it's almost as if it's not it's it's a thing. We have to do it because you're not going to be a very good organization if you don't have a strategy. So it's almost less about we need strategy because we, you know, the external environment is moving and we need to try and find a way to maintain viability, it's more the sense that we'll we have to have strategy. It's part of the governance. If you're if you're if you've got a strategy, you're as a leader, you're doing a good job. And that's it. It doesn't really matter about is the is the strategy any good, is it close to reality? Is it actually going to give the organization the direction it needs to be able to to actually maintain the viability? That doesn't matter, but it's all about governance because we need something to to show the board to tick off. We need something to justify um a budget, even though most budgets are done by you know, what did we do last year, plus or minus 10%. And we need something to to amplify out, to communicate out to people. So it's it's more of a thing we need to justify something, justify that we are, you know, a good or you know, organization. Because God, if we had investors and we didn't have a strategy, we'd be seen as not a good organization. The same with the board. And then another thing that's tightly coupled with that is that strategy is for an external, external projection, externalized projection of what I want people to think about us as an organization, not what we are. I want an external projection, a virtue about what I want people to think that we are. And you see the the the crossover between with marketing in this point, and this is where I I've I've written a lot about marketing, hijacking strategy. But if you sit with those two things for a moment, and they're both very tightly linked, that you know, why why do people have strategy? What's it for in organization? I would argue the two prominent frames is that we must have one because otherwise we wouldn't be seen as an effective organization if we didn't have one. So it comes into this idea that or furthers this idea that strategy is just a product, an output, a thing, a good governance thing, rather than what it should be for. And the other one is that it's just a projection of what I want people to think about me. So the two so we produce this thing to then to has an external projection that we give to our board, or even even when we communicate it only internally, it still is written as an external projection of virtue. And I think those are quite dangerous because that then leads into this whole thing about the performance, the theatre of strategy, rather than strategy being um a useful activity, not activity, it's probably words you know. I mean, it's useful because it helps an organization in the pursuit of viability and advantage. Because you ask me what's it for, what's strategy for, and that's why I would say I said strategy enables organisations in the pursuit of viability and advantage. And what I mean by that is we know that the organization is in the midst of an external environment that has intelligent actors around it, it has um a contextual environment around it, which is constantly changing, be it, you know, you can think about as the political, economical, uh, and definitely the political and economic ones are the ones that are challenging people the most at the moment with with Iran and stuff. These things don't sit still. So your organization's fit with the external environment is going to erode over time if you don't respond to these things. That if you're not constantly looking and um, you know, constantly orientating and adapting to changing circumstances. And this is what strategy is for that enables you to do it, enables that space for you to do that constant orientation and adaptation so that you maintain viability. And viability, and I use the word viability because it goes beyond profits, it goes beyond that. It's about your the ability of your organization to adapt without losing its coherences, uh, identity, and you know, in there that obviously profits profits are important with that, but of course, but there is more to the viability of an organization um than just that, and then advantage you need to because you have viability, but you need that advantage to sustain over time to give you stability to then be able to adapt, otherwise you'd be constantly fighting all the time. And this is the challenge I have with people because when I'm talking about strategy from my perspective, about what we spoke about across all these episodes and what I write in the book about, it's completely different perspective when people's worldview is set on the fact that you know I just need strategy because it's a governance thing, or strategy is projection of what I want people to think of me, of the organization, because then you know I I'm not gonna work with people to produce say uh a Greek villa in that sense because it's not useful. Um, I can't even work out in what context it is useful, other than maybe a bit of marketing, but marketing is a second order effect of strategy, it's not it doesn't it's not on level with it, it's a second order, it's a subordinate task to strategy, and that's why you are always surprised because you get a lot of these you know marketing strategies and all this stuff, and I I I think they they precede strategy, unfortunately. I think that's where a lot of confusion happens. But when they're when the paradigm is around that, that's concerning because that doesn't that doesn't really strike me as the the perspective that will look to to the external environment and orientate and adapt. It looks like you know, perspective, a whole theatre around how do we produce this lovely, shiny document that we can we can show around, we can put flashy lights around and then hope that that it'll happen. And this is where I think we're talking about at the start with that thread about the disassociation and also with the theatre, that's what just builds cynicism in the organization, and it creates a void because in that void you've got all these people that you've got strategy that's so vague and opaque, and it doesn't really it's not relevant, it you know, it sounds nice, but it's just superfluous words that no doubt someone has spent vast amounts of energy and time justifying the use of inclusive or diverse or you know, um or trying to think what they're gonna be the best at in the world. Um, and the priorities are all the same, pseudo pseudo priorities, and not priorities, they're just they're just things that just noddy things like oh, we're gonna have the best technology or we're gonna delight our customers, just noddy. And then what happens, people fill the void in the thing. That's why we see an increase of people go, oh, I've got I've got a people strategy, I've got a technology strategy, we've got an AI strategy, you've not got an AI AI strategy, you've not got a technology strategy, you've not got a people strategy, you have an interpretation of what the strategy is, and it's not saying that those things are important, of course, they're important, they're an enabling factors for you to achieve the strategy. So it's not a case that and the thing is people had this argument, people go, Well, I've got a um I've got a sustainability strategy. You haven't got a sustainability strategy, you have an organised, you have a strategy, and if you want to understand if sustainability is taken seriously in your organization, you've got to then look at how that has informed the decisions or the choices of the strategy. Because what's it that's what it's about. We we all know it's an important thing, and I view it as a as a constraint, and not all constraints are bad, some constraints are opportunities. So think about sustainability. There's this chef in the dollar mines, I forgot his name, but he's created this whole mountain to plate thing, so he's used this sustainability thing as an opportunity to create something really great, and it's really helped him. He's got you know free-making style things, it's there, but it's not a strategy in itself, it's like Tesco's technology viability is always going to be mainly around um you know selling things, but hopefully, sustainability is shaping what they do in that sense because they'll have choices, of course, they can go do X, Y, and Z, but then that thing will um that will shape. Well, we could do that, and it's probably cheaper, more far thing. But actually, if we're really serious about sustainability, that's not a choice, and we'll go we'll go this way. Same with safety. You can't afford, and and if people maybe it's a semantic problem, but you know, if they want to call it strategy, can, but you can't let it fracture the organization. What they do, so their people strategy, their AI thing they want to do, I hate calling it strategy, but it really is that interpretation. What is the strategy? What does it mean in my context, and what I'm going to do about it? So if it is the technology department, you know, wherever, they can look at it and go, well, actually, to enable us to do that, we need to use you need to utilize this, this, and this. And AI may be in there, and actually it may help them because a lot of the times people say, Oh, we just need AI, Mike. What for? I know you probably do need it, it's helpful, it's helpful, but specifically what for? So I think a lot of this stems from this worldview. What is your worldview? And I think that's what I want people to think about from here is thinking, what is your worldview? What think about it, pause this. What is strategy for? What is your worldview on that? Especially if you're listening to this and you're a leader in an organization. Look at your strategy, look at the effort, the the mech uh the mechanisms that you've got to develop in your strategy, and really think about what does this produce and what is the predominant worldview about what strategy is for us. I think it'd be quite revealing. And like Joel said, we've got to be wary of this professionalization of strategy that we create this mechanistic view of it that it's just producing stuff, because we have to produce something rather than really thinking about what is strategy for and what do we need it for for this organization's viability and advantage. So um, yeah, I think they're my reflections. I hope you found this um this good. But please, um, anything I said on here, please challenge me. I I do like having um a chat on here. Please put any questions, share with your your network, so they get value from this. These are just really the key things that I've got from the the the nine episodes so far. So that power is the orientation. We must start with the current situation first. As Sarah said, you can't out decide a poor orientation, and also that interpretation. Actually, are we are we just amplifying noise to our people and using this communication warfare of just noise? Or are we actually stopping and enabling people to understand it from their context? What is what you're actually asking them of them? Because that more likely will trans actual run engagement, but also delivery, fast execution, adaptable execution. And then really thinking about with all this, this theatre that I keep seeing in organizations, what what is strategy? What's it for? I think that's where I would like people to go away and think about from this episode, is really think about what you've done in your organization and what it's for. Are you finding this useful? We've got some fantastic guests coming up. We've got um a lot of really interesting guests coming on. But again, if there's anyone you think would be great for the show, please get in touch with me and I'll have a look at those and see if they're they're suitable for the show. But yeah, please, I really appreciate your support and I look forward to engaging with you all soon. So take care. Bye.