Why most strategies fail — and what to do about it

There is a well-known scene from Alice in Wonderland that is often quoted in strategy circles. Alice gets lost in the Wonderland forest. While wandering around, she meets the Cheshire Cat and asks him which way she should go. The Cheshire Cat replies that it depends on where she wants to go. Alice answers that she doesn't really know, and the Cheshire Cat responds with devastating clarity: "Then it doesn't matter which way you take."

The same applies to organisations. If there is no clear strategy, employees can get lost in their tasks and, with the best of intentions, work on all sorts of good things that they believe add value — but which do not necessarily take the organisation in the right direction.

A successful strategy is and always will be something we do together.

This is the central challenge that Strategy is Tangible sets out to solve. Not with a magical silver bullet or a revolutionary new theory, but with craftsmanship. Clean lines. Structure. And above all: the discipline to translate strategic thinking into concrete actions that someone actually has to do on Monday morning.

The drawer problem

Every year, thousands of strategies are formulated across the world. They are presented in beautiful slide decks with impressive graphics. They contain ambitious goals and inspiring visions. And then, far too often, they end up in a drawer. Or on a drive where no one can find them. The work of developing the strategy was engaging and energetic, but the bridge between thinking and doing was never built.

The reason is usually not a lack of intelligence or commitment. It is a lack of method. Without a structured process that forces you to prioritise, make difficult opt-outs, and translate insights into actions with clear ownership, even the best strategic thinking remains just that — thinking.

Strategy is not a staircase

It can be tempting to view strategy work as a staircase you climb. A process where you quietly build insights and knowledge on top of each other until you reach the goal. But that is not how it works. Strategy is concrete and lies in the actions themselves. These actions can take you up and down and forward and backward.

As Fred Pelard emphasises in his book How to be Strategic, working with strategy is a lifelong rollercoaster ride. You alternate between getting into the helicopter to see the big picture, then diving down in the submarine to examine facts and data, all while moving forward with new knowledge and insights.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Success is therefore not an action, but a habit." — Aristotle

The key is to embrace this dynamic. Strategy is not something you complete and file away. It is a continuous process in which you revisit your understanding of the present, your ambitions for the future, and adjust your actions accordingly.

What you can do differently

The book presents a simple model built on three phases — Present, Future and Action — with eight concrete steps. The model does not promise that success is guaranteed. But it does promise that you will end up with something concrete: a prioritised action plan with clear ownership, traceable back to structured analysis rather than gut feelings.

And most importantly: it is something you do together. The more you involve employees, managers and the board, the more confident you can be that everyone can see themselves in the strategy and understand how to think and work with it.