When organisations revisit their strategy, the discussion often focuses on objectives, strategic priorities, initiatives or performance metrics. All of these matter. Yet one question is asked far less often: what is it about our strategy that actually needs to change?
The answer is not as straightforward as it may first appear.
Strategy does not begin with objectives or metrics. These are consequences of strategic choices. Those choices, in turn, depend on how an organisation interprets its environment, identifies the changes that matter most and develops an understanding of the strategic choices they require.
If that interpretation changes, the foundations of the strategy may also need to change. If it does not, a strategy can remain highly relevant even when the external environment continues to evolve.
From this perspective, updating a strategy is not primarily about revising the strategy document. It is about asking whether the strategy still addresses the questions that are most critical to the organisation’s future.
Richard Rumelt argues that good strategy begins with understanding the organisation’s central challenge before strategic choices are made. Roger Martin approaches strategy from a different perspective. Rather than selecting from predefined alternatives, he emphasises the importance of developing new strategic alternatives by asking better questions.
These perspectives share an important insight. Strategy is not the product of a framework or a planning exercise. It emerges from an organisation’s ability to interpret its environment and identify the questions that truly matter.
At this point, it is useful to distinguish between two different kinds of questions.
First, organisations need questions that build strategic understanding. These questions deepen our understanding of changes in the environment, the relationships between them and their strategic significance.
Only then can organisations identify the strategic questions that strategy itself should answer.
This distinction becomes visible in many board and executive discussions. Conversations often move quickly towards objectives, investments or new initiatives before asking whether the underlying strategic questions have actually changed.
A decade ago, a strategic question for many organisations was how to leverage digitalisation. Today the question may be how artificial intelligence reshapes customer behaviour, competitive advantage or capability requirements. When an organisation’s strategic questions change, it becomes necessary to reassess the strategy itself.
Identifying strategic questions, however, is still not strategy. It is from these questions that strategic alternatives begin to emerge.
This is where developing strategic alternatives becomes essential. Roger Martin argues that strategic thinking rarely consists of selecting from a predefined set of options. More often, it involves creating alternatives that better address an organisation’s evolving challenges and opportunities.
This is one reason why strategy is rarely a linear process. Strategic understanding deepens, strategic questions evolve and alternatives are developed in parallel. As an organisation’s interpretation of its environment changes, new strategic questions—and new alternatives—may emerge.
It is on this basis that strategic choices emerge.
These choices need to become visible in organisational structures, resource allocation, leadership practices and, ultimately, in what the organisation chooses to measure.
Discussions about updating strategy often focus on objectives, priorities and performance metrics. Before revising any of these, however, it is worth asking whether the questions on which the strategy is built are still the ones that matter most for the organisation’s future.
This calls for careful judgement about which changes are strategically significant and what they imply for future choices.
Strategic thinking does not eliminate uncertainty. Its purpose is to help organisations recognise which questions matter most for their future. When those questions change, strategy deserves to be reconsidered. Only then can organisations assess how those changes should be reflected in their structures, leadership practices and the metrics they use to guide performance.
References
- Martin, R. (2022). A New Way to Think.
- Rumelt, R. (2011). Good Strategy / Bad Strategy.
- Rumelt, R. (2022). The Crux: How Leaders become Strategists.
