Why Most Strategies Lack Clarity

1. Strategies should be directionally correct to help guide an organization to a common goal, but not be overly prescribed in order to adapt and remain flexible in the face of an unknowable future.

2. People like confidence, so if you say, "We'll figure it out as we go along", it sounds like you don't know what you're doing, and no one will follow you.

The natural result if these two forces are strategies sound good (i.e., "certainty") by lack real strategic meat (i.e., "clarity/coherence")—either by being overly vague or too tactical. So the crux, as a strategic leader, is to figure out how to drive confidence in a strategy while "also acknowledging uncertainty".

Mission: What's compelling us to make that Vision real

Strategy (as a roadmap): The ways we think we could get closer to creating the future contained in the Vision

Backlog: How we've chosen to try and move forward on the Strategy

> The unlock, I think, is realizing that you can confidently communicate a coherent strategy that also acknowledges uncertainty.

Figuring out how to do this well is the trick.

If your whole article was meant to serve as a prime example of someone who lacks coherence, clarity and certainty, then I profoundly apologize, because you've hit the nail on the head with that one.

Here's my initial post: ----

This article is dumb. Period. There's no excuse.

What he hell is wrong with you?

Ignoring that it seems rather obvious that the lack of clarity comes from too many people believing there's actual depth behind buzzwords. I could be completely wrong, though not partly, yet definitely not as wrong as you are, because mine's not based on a wild assumption mistaken as potentially valid conclusion, but in actual reality backed up by peoples experiences.

Besides that, your conclusion is ... superficial. Shallow. Lacks depth just like buzzwords do.

This article/blogpost/whateveryouwishtocallit is horribly written. While you do take a first step into the right direction towards understanding, you seem to stop at the first finding that pops up, mistaking it for some important information of actual value.

It fucking isn't. In fact, your whole article is based on nonsense and you're actually insulting yourself with it, publicly.

Regardless ... I've actually read through all of it. That's something I usually don't do, because it's not fucking worth it. Sooo .... you've got that going for yourself, which unknowingly means a lot.

It's also short, of course, which may or may not give us hints about your attention span.

You have this nugget here, "They don’t wake up and say “I want to keep the team in a fog!"", and then you somehow magically not just leap, but outright conclude:

"We confuse clarity/coherence and certainty."

This is definitely true if everyone else thinks like you, because you've actually tried taking this nonsense to actually make a case for it.

"If clarity/coherence equals certainty" ... they fucking don't.

clarity does not equal coherence, coherence does not equal certainty, certainty does not equal clarity.

You can not, in fact, even just understand the problem, as long as you are oblivious to the actual definitions and meaning of significant words.

"If clarity/coherence equals certainty, and a strategy is supposed to be clear and coherent, then unless we are certain, we can’t have a strategy."

Do you, yourself, even understand what this means? This isn't a coherent, structured thought. Worse, the negation! The whole sentence requires a negation to actually even exist and count as a valid ... verbal construct.

...

If this is just trolling, though, then it's a fucking master-piece.