I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026/2027

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

The personal updates before we go-go

• Beat the traffic! My H1 2027 is starting to fill up with plenty of keynotes. With the new book on its way, and other conferences currently being in negotiation, the schedule is only going to get more cramped. It is therefore high time indeed to let me know if your event or organization might want to bring me in for a presentation. Just send Anna an email and she will help you with everything that you need.

• Swedish corporate or social event tip of the week: my friend Joseph Fattorini, who not only happens to be (literally) one of the top wine experts anywhere on the planet but also an immensely nice and eloquent man, is now available to book for wine tastings. I cannot recommend it highly enough; we had him in for a private event a few years ago and it was p-e-r-f-e-c-t.

• Parenting note of the week: I am fully aware that there are few things as sensitive as how one raises one’s offspring. But Jesus Kenneth Christ, some parents really have no fucking idea how to set boundaries.

• Child note of the week: the eldest daughter, who will turn five later this fall, has entered into a refusal-to-eat-almost-anything-but-carbs period. This is a massive shift; she used to gladly gulp down almost everything. Thankfully, she still eats fish, seafood, and chicken, but bloody hell. This nonsense had better stop soon.

• Food and beverage note of the week: the Louis Roederer Collection 246 champagne is very good. Excellent value for money.

• Moving on to markets.
  
  

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026/2027

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

The personal updates before we go-go

• Beat the queue. My H1 2027 is starting to fill up with keynotes. With the new book on its way, and other conferences currently being in negotiation, the schedule is only going to get more cramped. It is therefore high time indeed to let me know if your event or organization might want to bring me in for a presentation. Just send Anna an email and she will help you with everything that you need.

• New 2026 content. Starting this fall, there will be two new additions to the Strategy in Praxis offering.

  • For premium subscribers, there will be a quarterly strategy clinic: a one hour (at least initially, while we gauge interest) session during which we collectively try to solve your strategy problems. Are you facing a particular challenge at work? Do you struggle to create the results that you strive for? This is for you.

  • For free subscribers, there will be a new feature called metered paywalls launching. It is designed to reward the most loyal non-paying subscribers by unlocking otherwise paywalled content. Here is how it works: so long as you have a Substack account, are logged in, and are a subscriber to Strategy in Praxis, the platform will keep track of how many newsletters you actually read. Once you hit a certain numbers threshold, you will be able to access a paid post and see what you are otherwise missing.

• The Golden Sparrow, here I come. MarketingWeek has announced it will be launching a sibling publication in India — and lead with, among other things, a few columns by yours truly. Lovely news, that.

• The science-defining capabilities of small children is astonishing. A couple of observations:

  • I suppose the reason why children are so keen to lie as close as possible to you is entirely evolutionary, but man alive can a large bed shrink in size the moment they climb into it at night. There is no correlation, absolutely none, between their physical size and the space they take up.

  • If theoretical statistics held up in reality, the chance of a two-year old putting on a shoe on the corresponding (correct) foot should be 50/50. In practice, it is nowhere near that. Similarly, if ten pairs of kids’ socks go into a washing machine, one would expect ten pairs to also come out. Nope. Nine odd socks and one pair. Every single time.

• Food and beverage note of the week: made phȯ (the Vietnamese rice noodle soup) for the first time. Very good, though the fact that it actually is a breakfast dish was impossible for my children to take in.

• Moving on to markets.
  

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• And so here we are, back on the professional terra firma that we left on July 10. The wife has returned to the office, the kids have returned to kindergarten (until they inevitably return home with the various diseases that their classmates picked up over the summer), and my fingers are once more tapping away furiously on my keyboard, trying to wrap up the last details on the new book. Though I am already missing not having my family around as I work from home, I must admit I have also missed writing. I do like it.

  • Next week, I will provide an update on what I have planned for premium subscribers this fall; I will be adding a couple of things that should both create surplus value and build community. Really looking forward to those. But more on that then.

• The weeks off were great, save for the sinusitis and the pinched nerve that still bothers me slightly. We went to the house up north, for the first time driving there with the new EV. Even though it is a big, heavy, thirsty SUV, we had no range anxiety what-so-ever. It was just lovely. I expect the freezing winter to be a slightly different experience, though.

  • I am starting to see Rory’s point on not returning to a fossil fuel car. Were I able to afford it, I could go for a sports car at some point, and that might be a different question. But for the family? No chance.

• We also took the kids to a combined swimming pool complex, zoo, and amusement park. That was just a perfect day.

• The youngest stopped using diapers all by herself. We had planned to get her off them anyway, but she basically one day went “I need to poop in the toilet”, and from then on, the diaper was dry all day and night. Like winning the crap lottery.

• Food and beverage note of the week: we are now in chanterelle season in Sweden. Pan fried in lots of butter, on toast, with an ice-cold German lager, is to my palette the single tastiest thing that is possible to eat. There is literally no food, whether hot or cold, sweet or savory, that I find more delicious. Heaven on a plate.

• Moving on to markets.

The market vitals

• No market vitals this week as they are exclusive to premium subscribers, and this is the monthly free edition. To gain access to the analyses and 300% more content like what you are right now reading, just click this link to become a premium member today.

• Moving on.

A follow-up

Subpar execution: the bane of strategy?

Earlier this year, as May was just about to give way to June, I published a piece on the illusory truth that execution somehow ate strategy for breakfast. Apparently, or so a client executive had told me at the time, it had become a common refrain among consultants in these “uncertain times”; all that ultimately matters is execution. I concluded that the consultants were wrong. Strategy and execution are intrinsically linked, though not necessarily in the linear formulation-then-implementation relationship that managers have traditionally imagined. One cannot simply abandon one completely in favor of the other.

What the original claim represented was, I suspect, a growing frustration among managers and executives that their firms are unable to adapt quickly enough. It is a recurring behavioral pattern during periods of uncertainty and turmoil — and to quote the nasal poet Bob Dylan, the times, they are a-changin'. Hence, in a way, I understand why the consultants would try to make the argument.

Indeed, much as how some people will create a mental image of an ex-partner as an “anti-ideal”, some business leaders will look at failures of the past and consider them the inverse of what they desire. This near Costanzian approach to strategic management means that, every now and again, they will seek (almost) the opposite of what they just had. If conventional strategy fails, which it is likelier to do the more market change there is, then abandoning strategy for execution might constitute an attractive alternative.

But doing away with strategy in favor of pure executional agility is not merely a practical faux pas, it also represents a full pendulum swing from an original position that never was right either. You see, the debate began in a place familiar to most strategists: the common argument that most strategies fail because of poor execution. Sometimes, it is even accompanied by numbers — typically either 90% or a slightly more modest but still eye-opening 70% — which makes it all the more believable for an audience only too happy to avoid pointing the finger at themselves. They are, after all, the clever people in the organization; that has been the picture of strategists (or perhaps more accurately, many strategists’ picture of themselves) ever since Frederick Winslow Taylor separated the whole-witted thinkers from the half-witted doers at the turn of the 20th century. The only slight problem was and remains the evidence.

FACTS AND FIGURES

A closer look illustrates the point. From what I have been able to gather, it appears that the oft-cited numbers emerged out of two independent but related Fortune articles:

• The 90% claim can be traced back to a 1982 piece by Walter Kiechel called Corporate Strategists Under Fire (unavailable in full online), although his original argument was rather different from the one subsequently attributed to it. Kiechel described a backlash against a strategy industry that had become commoditized to the point of “seagull consulting” becoming standard fare — firms would fly in, drop a strategy on the client, and fly out again. In conversations with the consultants he interviewed, he found that they believed fewer than 10% of their clients were able to make their strategies work. The figure was an informal estimate rather than empirical research, and Kiechel neither defined what was meant by “work” nor established that the fault did not lie with bad strategies.
  

• The 70% claim, meanwhile, seems to find its roots in Ram Charan and Geoffrey Colvin’s Why CEOs Fail, published in 1999. The pair put forth that the main issue in 70% of CEO failures was poor execution rather than bad strategy. However, even with the best will in the world, their research was not exactly what one would call thorough. Their argument drew on executives they had spoken to, but there was no specified sampling method or statistical basis for the 70% figure. Charan and Colvin simply “estimated” that bad execution was to blame for that many failures. Even if that were somehow true, the figure could only be conditional on the cases they had examined. It was not a finding that 70% of all strategies failed.

Nevertheless, the two Fortune articles were then synthesized in Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton’s The Strategy-Focused Organization, published by Harvard Business School Press in 2000. The authors opened the book by writing:

The ability to execute strategy can be more important than the strategy itself. A survey of management consultants in the early 1980s reported that fewer than 10% of effectively formulated strategies were successfully implemented. A 1999 Fortune cover story on prominent CEO failures concluded that in about 70% of the cases the problem wasn’t bad strategy but bad execution.

A page later, they explicitly referred to “90% failure rates”. But, again, Kiechel did not conduct a “survey” or establish that the strategies were “effectively formulated”; he merely pointed out that the companies had not gotten the strategies they had purchased to work. Kaplan and Norton added the premise, and once they had, the conclusion was predetermined. If the strategies were good, whatever remained had to be an implementation problem. Charan and Colvin ostensibly proved the point.

Subsequent independent research, albeit of the black box kind, also seemed to corroborate the story further. In 2010, Jocelyn Davis, Henry Frechette and Edwin Boswell's Strategic Speed: Mobilize People, Accelerate Execution, published by Harvard Business Press, suggested that organizations abandoned between 50-70% of their strategies because they failed to take hold or produce the expected results in time. Curiously, the range then disappeared. “In other words”, the authors explained, “only 30 percent of strategic initiatives fully succeed, on time.” Mathematically, of course, 50–70% failure implies 30–50% success, but 30% represents only the most pessimistic end of the estimate. One might also observe that, strictly speaking, neither “not taking hold” nor “not producing expected results in time” must translate to abject failure. But be that as it may, the 30% figure became the headline claim of the book.

Unfortunately, by 2015, Carlos Cândido and Sérgio Santos had gone looking for the evidence underneath the now-common failure rates. Their extensive review concluded that the actual rate of strategy-implementation failure was simply unknown; most existing estimates relied on evidence that was outdated, fragmentary, fragile or altogether absent. There was no average worthy of its name at any identifiable percentage point.

THE PERFECT ALIBI

What we are dealing with, in other words, is a statistical conflation. Kiechel’s 10%, Charan & Colvin’s 70%, and Davis et al.’s 50-70% all have different denominators, different objects, and different definitions of failure — yet strategic management discourse has treated them as if they describe the same underlying phenomenon. And it still does. As recently as 2024, two prominent Australian strategists confidently wrote that “between 70 and 90% of strategies fail — not due to a lack of vision or boldness — but due to poor execution”. This is a near-perfect illustration of what I described last week:

Put somewhat crudely, if enough people falsely believe that they know how a toilet works, the world will soon be covered in shit. And if people happen to share the same false belief, the problem can easily be exacerbated even further; not only will they be wrong, but all but guaranteed never to discover that they are, as anything that deviates from the perceived standard will be assumed to be wrong. It is for this reason that paradigms can persist for far longer than seems reasonable in retrospect; their authority does not rely on a final truth in any metaphysical sense, but on repeatability.

My point is not that strategy cannot fail from subpar execution. It obviously can; anyone with so much as a week’s worth of professional experience knows as much. But one cannot deduce that a strategy was good if the organization could not make it work. Consider, for instance, a strategy that requires capabilities the company cannot build, resource reallocations it cannot sustain, coordination it cannot achieve, customer behaviors that do not materialize, or assumptions that unravel once action begins. If all of that should fall under the label “execution”, the strategy becomes insulated from falsification. When the organization succeeds, the strategy can take the credit; when it does not, implementation can take the blame. It would be a perfect alibi with only the tiniest of caveats, i.e., not being really real.

Ultimately, execution does not only deliver the strategy; it also generates information about whether the strategy deserves to survive. That, I think, is the killer insight that so many miss. To my opening point, the relationship is not one of formulation → implementation → success. Rather, the strategy shapes action → actions encounter reality → reality supplies information → the information alters the strategy → the altered strategy shapes subsequent action, and so forth.

The problem with replacing strategy with execution, therefore, is not just that strategy still matters, but that doing so preserves the very distinction that caused the problem in the first place. The old model privileged formulation and treated execution as its servant; the new one privileges execution and treats strategy as expendable. Both imagine a separation that does not exist.

Put differently, the answer is not to swing the pendulum back. It is to get rid of the pendulum.

Until next time, have the loveliest of weekends.

Onwards and ever upwards,
JP

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• No extensive list of personal updates; I am still on vacation. Or so I have promised my wife. Just four notes.

  • First, since I decided (for the first time in ages) to leave my laptop behind, my body decided to leave its immune system at the house too. So a day into the vacation, I got sinusitis. Then, I blew out my back and pinched a nerve. The essence of tragedy too is timing.

  • Second, the eldest continues her streak of zingers. Early this morning, as the kids were playing loudly in our bed, my wife told them to pipe down as the neighbors doubtlessly would be sleeping. Child #1, without skipping a beat, merely replied “well, they clearly should not be sleeping this early”.

  • Third, excellent newsletter by Nick Asbury this week on the difference between campaigns as portrayed by Cannes Lions winners and the actual reality.

  • Fourth, the wife and I went to see The Odyssey while the kids were with their grandmother. Good, of course; very much a cinema movie. The lack of CGI made the scale of the spectacle immensely impressive. Still not entirely sure why Elliot Page was cast as an Ithacan soldier when he has the physical appearance of someone who would fall over if struck by a mild breeze, but that is neither here nor there.

    • The Swedish cinema experience has gone very American in the time since I last saw a movie. I mean, fried snacks aside, how in the name of diabetes is a 0.75l soft drink a medium? That is literally the same size as a bottle of wine! Insane.

• Moving on to markets.
  

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• No extensive list of personal updates; I am still on vacation. Or so I have promised my wife. Just two notes.

  • First, since I decided (for the first time in ages) to leave my laptop behind, my body decided to leave its immune system at the house too. So a day into the vacation, I got sinusitis. Then, I blew out my back and pinched a nerve. The essence of tragedy too is timing.

  • Second, the eldest continues her streak of absolute zingers. Early this morning, as the kids were playing loudly in our bed, my wife told them to pipe down as the neighbors doubtlessly would be sleeping. Child #1, without skipping a beat, merely replied “well, they clearly should not be sleeping this early”.

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• No personal updates; I am on vacation. Or so I have promised my wife.

• Moving on to markets.

The market vitals

• No market vitals for the next four weeks as a) most stock markets more or less in hibernation mode, and b) I need to prepare a number of newsletters in advance in order to be able to spend time with my wife and children (who are now, and for the next six weeks, off kindergarten. The kids, that is.).

• Moving, therefore, swiftly on.

THE SYSTEMS PARADOX AND THE STRATEGIST

By Doug Garnett
Adjunct Prof, School of Business Administration, Portland State University
Author of The Complexity Paradigm: Using Systems Science to Drive Business Success, Available January 2027 from Columbia Business School Publishing

The July 3, 2026 premium edition of this newsletter (“The one on boxes”) looked at how humans create metaphorical boxes when they make abstractions. While this is done hoping to discover paths to action, these boxes also mislead us. Picking up where JP left off, let me start with an idea from one of my recent blog posts — what I called the “Paradox of Systems Science.”

THE PARADOX

Complexity science shows that those of us doing business face a paradox:

• The whole of any business is, and will always be, a complex adaptive system made up of, and interacting with, many other complex adaptive systems. We cannot fully define all the parts of these systems, the ways in which parts are interconnected, what passes along interconnections as parts influence each other, nor how these systems will evolve into the future. We only fully know the results of this network of complexity once its emergent results become evident. Note that I use the word “fully” because we can anticipate a great deal of what may emerge. Thus, all success requires that we act with savvy amid such systems.
  

• To act, businesses must at least partially abstract or reduce the whole complex world into parts, ideas, and systems we can manipulate — we must create boxes. Yet as soon as we define boxes, we are no longer intimately aware of the whole complexity within which we work. This is clearly a double-edged sword, as at least some abstractions and reductions are required if we are to take effective action. These abstractions can also be seen as closed, bounded systems — reductions from the whole complexity of our work. At any point, though, reality may change. Thus, every system we define will, at some point, fail.

I have used the term “system” here because companies treat these abstractions or reductions as systems — coherent frameworks for effective actions. In fact, all abstractions create at least mental systems, so that even simple, apparently common-sense ideas become unexpectedly systemic.

A BIOLOGICAL BASIS FOR THE PROCESS

Companies, then, continually reduce complex adaptive systems into closed, bounded systems without realizing that they have done so. A useful explanation of a biological basis for doing this is suggested in psychiatrist Iain McGilcrhist’s ground-breaking book The Master and His Emissary.

McGilchrist studied the two physical hemispheres of the human brain: the right and the left. He found each processes the world in its own unique way, but not in the ways suggested by past right-brain/left-brain theories. Instead, McGilchrist found that in the right physical hemisphere our minds observe the whole complex world within which we exist while remaining open to what is new or novel. The physical left hemisphere, by contrast, seems to excel at manipulating or working within the world after it has been broken into parts. That is to say, after it has been reduced, partitioned, developed in boxes, or split in any of many other ways. While skilled at working with parts, though, this part of our mind does not observe what is new or novel.

While these processes are quite different, both are critical to our thriving as whole human beings; we cannot say one or the other is more important. Further, our brains likely evolved this duality because we have always had to thrive amid complex adaptive systems. Thus, the systems paradox is key to finding ways to thrive within complex adaptive systems where we must take firm action — or firm inaction.

As with many biological realities, the paradox also creates serious risk, especially if we believe reducing the world into parts or boxes ensures success with safely controlled actions. Of course, as readers of this newsletter will know, safety does not ensure success as seeking only safe paths ensures mediocrity or failure, not success. Why? Having reduced the complex world into safe sets of parts or boxes, we no longer understand connections critical to success. It may be useful at this point to remind readers of George Box’s famous observation that “all models are wrong, but some are useful.” Paraphrased for our current topic, all business reductions or abstractions are wrong while some can be quite useful, at least for a time.

Effective action within the paradox needs to follow McGilchrist’s book title so that the hemisphere of the complex — his right hemisphere — leads as the Master, while the left hemisphere is the master’s emissary.

THE STRATEGIST’S CHALLENGE: PART I

Turning specifically to strategy, this vision of action suggests two critical roles. First, part of a strategist’s role is to develop boxes, reductions, or abstractions which lead to effective action. While there are many ways we can do this, all involve reducing the inherent complexity of the whole business in the hope of finding ways to envision action leading to success.

Considered another way, the idea of reduction or abstraction seems to imply that we make things “less.” That’s not necessarily true, as we see by considering different ideas. Anyone writing a biography must engage in what we will call biographical magnification. Every individual’s life is a complex adaptive system which cannot be fully captured in simple ways. No biographer, then, ever captures the whole complexity of a subject’s life. Instead, great biographies must magnify some elements while minimizing others if the reader is to discover a useful understanding of the subject. Each new biography, then, understands a different slice of an individual’s whole path through time.

Strategists also cannot capture the whole realities of any business, nor can a business succeed by focusing on everything at once. A strategist must therefore magnify certain elements and minimize others, seeking useful ways for companies to guide their actions and activities. As with our paradox, this magnification and minimization means companies no longer see the whole of the complex world within which they work.

While these limits enable action, they also create inherent danger. All strategic magnifications, for example, eventually lose their value and begin to backfire. Further, connections among issues we have minimized can, in a moment, become suddenly important and threaten disaster. Worse, things we magnified with focus may suddenly become unimportant. Thus, every strategic success creates circumstances for what we might call strategic blowback at some point in the future.

I expect many involved with strategy will nod their heads, accepting these inherent risks as, in my experience, those of us who develop strategies enjoy the process of magnification. Far less enjoyable is the second challenge in the paradox.

THE STRATEGIST’S CHALLENGE: PART II

Strategists face a second challenge as they must also always remain aware that each reduction reduces the company’s vision; it no longer envisions action within its whole complex world. In response, they must continually watch for early indications of strategic blowback while being prepared to seek new directions — to adapt — when they detect changes in the complex whole.

I cannot offer any simplistic ways for strategists to handle this second challenge. Let me recommend, instead, gathering a set of potential principles from which we can, as need dictates, choose those which best fit the unique situations we encounter. These principles might best start with JP’s ABCDE framework. A second principle I’ll offer is that strategists need to ensure that companies always explore. Every department needs to explore in small ways. Only such familiarity with exploration can prepare a company for effective response to larger changes as they become necessary.

A SHORT EXAMPLE: CHOOSING TARGET MARKETS

Rather than offer a deeply sophisticated example of a full strategy, let’s consider the strategic magnification from a commonly accepted strategic practice: identifying target markets.

What matters for a company is the whole market of everyone who buys their product or service. Yet, as I discuss in my upcoming book, demand for a company’s products is an emergent result. As such, it is a complex result of a complex adaptive system which cannot be understood by study only of its parts.

Fortunately, companies discover patterns among purchasers. So, while no set of traits covers everyone who buys, there will be groups of purchasers who share common traits. Seeking levers by which they can gain influence over their market, then, strategists identify target markets — magnifying certain groups with common traits because doing so might offer paths to increasing the company’s effectiveness in design, manufacturing, distribution, communication, pricing, and more.

Having magnified the traits of one group of customers, however, the strategist has minimized traits of other customers. If the magnification has been done wisely, it will build significant strength for a company — for a time. Customers evolve continually, adapting in response to competitor products, to products in other categories, to shifts in broad market realities, to social trends and society, within government actions, and more. Hence, all target market identifications eventually fail or become ineffective.

How, then, might we manage the two challenges in this example? Extensive writing already exists around ways to identify valuable possible target markets. I will add only that truly effective target-market projects take far more effort and investment than they are usually allowed. As a result, many companies work to target-market ideas which deliver little strategic value.

What about principles companies and strategists should use to detect inevitable complex evolution? The single most important principle is staying continually aware of how customers use products and services, and the value they find using them. This must be tracked among at least three groups — customers in your core target market, customers in larger secondary groups, and customers far outside your core focus.

This last group may be the most important. Companies readily keep in touch with core customers, but they offer little new learning about market evolution. We need instead to look at extreme uses as these illustrate and inform unexpected realities. Only by probing “edge case” uses can companies stay in touch with unexpected paths of evolution and discover important areas for safe-to-fail experimentation.

In closing, note that a key value of any paradox is that it keeps our minds open and curious — reminding us of the world’s complexity. While curiosity may have killed the cat, as we are too often told, no company succeeds in the long run without remaining curious about its business, its customers, and the natural evolution of its business.

And with that, we thank Doug for what I hope you thought was as great a piece as I did. Until next time, have the loveliest of weekends.

Onwards and ever upwards,
JP

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• No personal updates; I am on vacation. Or so I have promised my wife.

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• No personal updates; I am on vacation. Or so I have promised my wife.

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• So. Hot. In. Europe. Right. Now.

  • I know that some people adore the high summer temperatures, but I was born to endure cold weather. The modern climate penchant for heatwaves does nothing for me; I am just reduced to Margaret Hamilton.

  • For those unaware, Swedish houses rarely have air conditioning. We are not used to the heat and instead build our homes with high insulation so as to keep the winter out. When it is 30+ degrees outside, it becomes a million degrees inside. Makes everything a right to-do.

• Have not watched much of the World Cup, to be honest. Although I do not mind soccer, or football to use its proper name, it is not my first choice of sports to watch; I might look at a good game or two, but I will never prioritize it in the way that I do F1.

  • Speaking of: Silverstone this weekend. Verrrry interesting race given recent events.

• Food and beverage note of the week: made the year’s batch of elderflower lemonade. Sweet baby Jesus on roller skates carrying a jet engine is that ever good. If anyone wants the recipe, just hit me up.

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• Well, that was an… …interesting… …week.

  • My wife went into surgery on Tuesday morning. During the procedure (to have her gallbladder removed), the surgeon discovered that a gallstone had blocked an exit, which meant a) that it was good that she had the bladder removed, but also b) that she had to have a slightly more invasive procedure, and stay overnight at the hospital.

  • Meanwhile, on Monday evening, I got food poisoning.

  • Our children are four and a half, and one and a half.

  • So, yeah. That was fun.

• Food and beverage note of the week: no, not thinking about food just yet.

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• Free webinar alert:

  

  • On Monday, June 22, at 3pm CET (i.e., 9am, EST) I will be doing a LinkedIn Live stream on adaptive strategy. You can sign up here.

• If you want to listen to me being completely incoherent, I recently did Andi Jarvis’ podcast Strategy Sessions, now available on Spotify. Andi is probably my favorite host, and just an all-round brilliant bloke, but for some reason I am always shit on his show.

• F1 thoughts incoming. If that is not your bag, I recommend scrolling down.

  • Well, it turns out that Mercedes could race at Monaco after all. Or, to be more precise, that Kimi Antonelli could. George Russell fell in line with expectations. Ferrari ended up in second, and should have also ended up in third had not Leclerc’s side of the garage made a massive strategic error by sticking with the brakes from Montreal (even though they clearly did not work there).

  • Normally, the qualifying is immensely exciting and the race a complete dud as nobody can pass on such a narrow street track, but this year was great all through. I can certainly do without all the celebrity nonsense, though.

  • Barcelona will be revealing. It is a very conventional track that the teams know well. If Russell is still struggling there, the media narrative will become brutal.

• Food and beverage note of the week: the simplest summer hors d’oeuvre is equally sized pieces of really good feta cheese and water melon on a toothpick. Put a leaf of basil on top of each if you have got some to spare. Divine.

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• Free webinar alert:

  • The webinar on the use of artificial intelligence in strategy will run on Wednesday, June 10, at 10-11am EST (4-5pm CET). I suspect that one might garner a fair bit of attention, so do sign up early if you intend to join. There will be a 100-attendee maximum.

    • To join, just add your email here.

  • Please remember to check your spam folder before the event. The links are sent out 24 hours prior to it starting.

• In preparation for the event, I intend to do a deep dive into technical aspects of AI that I have yet to explore. If my beard is grayer than usual come Wednesday, you will know why.

• F1 thoughts incoming. If that is not your bag, I recommend scrolling down.

  • Monaco will, I suspect, be where we might begin to see Mercedes struggle a bit; it just does not seem to be a track that suits their car. The straight-line speed advantage (to the degree that it will exist; the FIA has not only ruled active aero off limits for the race, but reportedly also closed its compression ratio loophole) will not come into play in the same way. At this point, I would probably hold the Ferrari drivers as the favorites.

    • Speaking of which, nice to see Charles Leclerc get an extension. Very well deserved.

    • Another big announcements this week was Gucci becoming the title sponsor of Alpine starting next season. I genuinely could not care less about the supposed swag, but the livery will be very interesting to see.

      • For all the talk of the luxury appeal of F1, it seems obvious to me that the deal would not have been made without Luca de Meo who left his role as Renault Group CEO to become the chief executive of Kering — the parent company that among other brands owns, you guessed it, Gucci.

• Very sad to hear about Maria Costello’s crash at the Isle of Man TT. At the moment, it seems as if she will be partially paralyzed. At least it was not worse. The TT, for those unaware, is the most dangerous race on the planet by some distance, with a historical average of (as far as I recall) two fatalities per mile of race distance.

• Food and beverage note of the week: I will not be in Cannes this year, but I will be having a couple of glasses of rosé nonetheless. It is one of those drinks (like Aperol Spritz) which gets a bad rap as it supposedly is only consumed because it is trendy or sends certain signals. Hogwash, I say. It is delicious. Drink what you like, not what other people like to tell you to.

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• Free webinar(s) alert:

  • The webinar on strategy under high uncertainty that ran a couple of weeks ago will run again on Wednesday, June 3, at 10-11am EST (i.e., 4-5pm CET). The reason is partly popular demand, but also to ensure that all those who were unable to make it last time get another chance.

    • To join, just add your email here.

  • The webinar on the use of artificial intelligence in strategy will be a week later on Wednesday, June 10, at 10-11am EST (4-5pm CET). I suspect that one might garner a fair bit of attention, so do sign up early if you intend to join. There will be a 100-attendee maximum.

    • To join that one, just add your email here.

  • Please remember to check your spam folders before the events. The links are sent out 24 hours prior to them starting.

• Book alert: Doug’s book — The Complexity Paradigm — is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I have read it; it is brilliant. Highly recommend a purchase.

• Article alert: my latest piece for MarketingWeek is up. You can read it here.

• Another tragicomic week, involving the wife being hit by a bus while walking peacefully on the pavement (or sidewalk for the yanks among you), Child #2 getting another stomach bug (keeping both kids at home), a massive power outage in the middle of cooking dinner for the kids, and worse. Everyone is OK, but holy hell.

  • And yes, this is why this newsletter is coming out slightly later than usual. Apologies.

• Immensely important F1 weekend for George Russell coming up. If he does not excel at a track he has historically excelled at, it will be time to worry. If he does not beat his young teammate, it will be time to really worry.

  • Not entirely convinced by the idea of a Canadian sprint weekend; it does not feel like it fits the format. Happy to be proven wrong, though.

• Food and beverage note of the week:

• Moving on to markets.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• The great AI divide. How artificial intelligence creates a K-shaped capability landscape. (On the practical possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in strategic decision-making.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• Free webinar updates:

  • The webinar on strategy under high uncertainty that ran a couple of weeks ago will run again on Wednesday, June 3, at 10-11am EST (i.e., 4-5pm CET). The reason is partly popular demand, but also to ensure that all those who were unable to make it last time get another chance.

    • To join, just add your email here.

  • The webinar on the use of artificial intelligence in strategy will be a week later on Wednesday, June 10, at 10-11am EST (4-5pm CET). I suspect that one might garner a fair bit of attention, so do sign up early if you intend to join. There will be a 100-attendee maximum.

    • To join that one, just add your email here.

  • Please remember to check your spam folders before the events. The links are sent out 24 hours prior to them starting.

• Interesting to see how dissimilar two children can be. Certainly, the youngest child often has to be a bit more forward in order to avoid getting run over by their sibling(s), but our daughters are just worlds apart. Both are kind (which is good), but while the elder is quite reserved, her sister will not wait for someone else to act. She is also significantly tougher.

• On the weekly food and beverage note, German kellerbier is fantastic. That is all.

• Moving on to markets.

  ---

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• From last to first. How to create peak performance in the world’s most competitive settings. (On the field-changing power of adaptive strategy.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Adaptive strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• AI transformation. Capability creation, strategic utilization, process redesign.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

Personal updates before we go-go

• It turns out that a lot of people who had expressed interest in the webinar on strategy under conditions of high uncertainty missed it due to either client meetings, life happening, or the email containing the link ending up in the spam folder. Hence, I am going to do the webinar again. If you would like to attend that one, please let me know in the comment section below.

• There will also be a webinar on the nuts and bolts of how to use (and not use) AI in strategy. More information on that is to come.

• Not much else to update on this week, just work, work, work, work and more work. Wife is doing alright, for those who have asked. Surgery about to be scheduled.

• On the weekly food and beverage note, a word of advice to anyone who likes a barbecue: get proper coal from a kiln. Yes, it is far more expensive than the stuff you might pick up at the local grocery store, but the difference is worth it. Trust me.

• Moving on to markets.
  

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• From last to first. How to create peak performance in the world’s most competitive settings. (On the field-changing power of adaptive strategy.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to-market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

• AI has made sophisticated data analysis vastly more accessible, but accessibility is not the same thing as understanding.

• The biggest danger is not that the AI model fails, but that it produces confident answers from poorly framed questions.

• Good analysis does not begin with the data set; it begins with the decision the data are meant to support.

• To use AI well, strategists need more than prompts; they need a disciplined workflow for framing, testing, and challenging the output.

• The point is not to let AI decide for you, but to use it in a way that sharpens judgement rather than quietly replacing it.
  

Personal updates before we go-go

• To reiterate what I wrote last week, there will be a free webinar on strategy under conditions of high uncertainty (and yes, it will include AI) next week. We are targeting April 29 (a Wednesday), 10-11am EST. If you are interested, please put in your e-mail address here.

• Not much else to talk about today, as the last week has been rough due to a family medical emergency. My batteries are spent.

• Moving, therefore, swiftly on to markets.
  

Read more

I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.

Now accepting speeches and assignments for 2026

THE 2026 KEYNOTE DECKS

• When the ground moves. How to survive and thrive in a world of dynamic uncertainty. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• What to do when you don’t know what to do. How to create a competitive advantage from change. (Based on a new book by the same name.)

• From last to first. How to create peak performance in the world’s most competitive settings. (On the field-changing power of adaptive strategy.)

• The volcano that birthed Frankenstein. How contexts enable innovation — and how to take make the most of it. (A narrative-based talk on how world-altering creations can come from the most unlikely events.)
  
  

THE 2026 SERVICE OFFERING

Domains:

• Strategic management. Formulation, audits, support, ABCDE framework.

• Uncertainty management. Dynamic uncertainty, executive decision-making.

• Board effectiveness. Stewardship, oversight, leadership.

• Marketing management. Strategy (global and local), go-to market, innovation.

Formats: advisory retainers, fractional leadership (CSO/CMO), workshops, offsites, onsite training, online seminars, university lectures.

For any and all project inquiries, including presentations, merely send me an email by clicking this text.

The TL;DR

• AI is rapidly becoming a professional expectation in strategy, but most people still use it far more superficially than the rhetoric suggests.

• The real issue is not whether one uses AI, but whether one does so in a way that sharpens thought rather than quietly replacing it.

• Good prompting turns out to be far less about clever phrasing and far more about intellectual discipline.

• Used properly, prompts can expose blind spots, improve judgement, and make strategic work more rigorous.

• Used carelessly, the same tools can produce polished answers that weaken the very faculties strategists are paid to exercise.

Personal updates before we go-go

• To reiterate what I wrote last week, there will be a free webinar on strategy under conditions of high uncertainty (and yes, it will include AI) in a few weeks’ time. We are targeting April 29 (a Wednesday), 10-11am EST. If you are interested, please put in your e-mail address here.

• As the first book is now nearly finished, I find myself reflecting upon the rather arduous process that writing it has been. Certainly, I have made mistakes that I will not repeat for my second book (on dynamic uncertainty), but I must also accept the fact that doing things properly takes time.

  • Although the reader will not be aware of it at all times, practically every word has been researched to the nth degree. To illustrate, I am currently finalizing the ABCDE framework material. Detection (one of two parts of the D) is primarily about making sense of the strategic environment. I could either make the point that this involves both looking at and looking for data, or that it involves both looking at and looking for data because that is what the four most important scientific works in the field conclude. The former might suffice, and will be much faster to write, but the latter is (I think) much more intellectually honest.

• Began watching Maul: Lord of Shadows. Never been particularly interested in Star Wars’ animated offerings, but gave this one a chance since I am partial to Sam Witwer. It is pretty good.

  • We have also begun watching the second series of Fallout. So far, that is very good.

• Was listening to the Romesh Ranganathan show (podcast) and heard him bemoan not having a good avocado dessert recipe. So here is a sneakily delicious one that either my father or his father came up with using only three ingredients: avocado, sugar, and lemon.

  • Take four ripe avocados and split them lengthwise into two halves each.

  • Remove the cores and, using a spoon without damaging the shell, the pulp.

  • Put the shells in the fridge; put the pulp in a bowl.

  • Mash the pulp well using a fork (do not use a mixer; the consistency becomes far less enjoyable).

  • Add 4-6 tablespoons of white sugar, the juice from half a lemon, then scrape bits of lemon pulp and add those.

  • Mix with a spoon or fork.

  • Adjust with sugar and lemon based on personal preference; it should be a perfect blend of tart and sweet.

  • Divide the mix into the avocado shells, then let them rest in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.

  • Enjoy.

  • Thank me later.

• Moving on to markets.
  

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