Give the strategy an expiry question

Perspective · Little Light original

A strategy can become familiar long after it stops being useful. The team still repeats the same priorities, funds the same programmes and explains each new result through a plan written for an older market. Changing course feels disloyal, so effort goes into defending the map instead of noticing the terrain. When a strategy is approved, give it an expiry question: what would have to become true for us to reconsider this? It might be a customer behaviour, a cost, a regulation or a capability the organisation does not yet have. Naming that condition does not weaken commitment. It separates commitment to the purpose from attachment to one route. Review the question before disappointment forces the conversation. A thoughtful leader can honour the work that created a plan without asking it to remain correct forever. Strategy deserves conviction, but it also deserves a door back to reality. The goal is not to prove that yesterday's judgement was flawless. It is to keep today's effort pointed toward what matters now.

Little Light