Master Class [164]: Strategy Isn’t What You Say—It’s What You Do

YOU SOMETIMES HEAR bosses complain that their organization has no strategy. This isn’t true. Every organization has a strategy: Its strategy is what it does.

Think about it.

Every organization competes in a particular place, in a particular way, with a set of capabilities and management systems—all of which are the result of choices that people in the organization have made and are making every day.

When managers complain that their company’s strategy is ineffectual or nonexistent, it’s often because they haven't quite realized that their strategy is what they’re doing rather than what their bosses are saying.

In nine cases out of 10,