Conversations are dominating my strategy work. That didn’t used to be the case, though.
In my first decade as a strategist — what I consider my education — I learned the theory of thinking like a strategist. How to tackle a problem, articulate a challenge, use theoretical tools and frameworks to structure my approach and thinking.
I worked in agencies, so I also learned each agency’s approach to strategic work: the steps, the workflow, the outputs. The tidy package (deck or blueprint) I was expected to deliver.
When I was on agency side, there wasn’t much time for questions. It was about results, performance.
You got a brief. Maybe one Q&A with the client to clarify. You solved it.
Analysis, insight, solution.
Fast, clean, often dry. Formulaic.
Strategy as product.
I began learning more about business, economics, markets and competition, understanding the vast landscape brands exist in beyond the consumer relationship. I was expanding beyond my discipline.
There comes a point in our careers when I believe we graduate from the theory of our respective fields. We begin to think on our own, connect concepts, learn from and weave in our own experiences. We shape our own views on our industry and discipline. We develop a point of view.
For me, that point was a gradual frustration with the lull of the briefing-deliverable-rythm that is so common in most agency work.
Maybe you’ve felt it too, that moment when the work is “done and right”, but something essential still feels unsaid.
We’re growing up, questioning the learned, shaping a new understanding to fit an ever evolving world.
Now well into in my career’s second decade, I’ve developed my own perspective and way of work.
I make time to talk with leaders — and their teams, too. Not just once at the beginning, but repeatedly.
I talk with the people who will live with the strategy.
Whose daily choices and behaviors shape whether it thrives or dies quietly in a deck.
Every project now confirms what I’d sensed all along: Strategy emerges in conversation.
In the tensions people name when they feel listened to.
In the things they say when there’s time to reflect.
In the clues that surface when the pressure to be certain lifts.
Back then, I ignored that instinct. I followed the process of pre-defined steps and polished outputs.
And in truth, there’s a reason agencies work this way. It’s efficient for most straight-forward, expected challenges. It scales. And it’s why clients hire them.
But when things get opaque, contradictory, wishy-washy — aka human — it falls short.
Strategists are expected to have the answers. Rarely are we asked to find the right questions. Even more rarely, to go beneath the surface.
But strategic range and depth need dialogue. It might not produce answers as fast. But it opens up clarity, choices and paths worth taking.
It’s slower. Messier. But it’s alive.
And once you’ve worked this way, the old way feels like designing buildings no one lives in.
This is the work now. Listening alongside research. Direction shaped by dialogue. The evolution of theory into practice that stands the test of business success.