You’re too nice to have a strategy (so you don’t!)

I was talking to Alex M H Smith, one of the sharpest strategic minds around, when he casually dropped this bomb: fewer than 1% of businesses have actually figured out what he calls "the unique value code."

My bullshit detector immediately went off. That seemed way too low.

But then Alex broke it down: "People who've actually studied strategy—like actually read a book about it—maybe 0.1%. People who have a real strategy because they figured it out intuitively? Maybe 1%. Another 20% think they have a strategy, but they're just calling their to-do list something fancy."

Shit. He was right.

Your strategy is probably fake

Here's the uncomfortable truth: most companies have beautiful strategy documents that could literally be copy-pasted to any competitor. They talk about "customer excellence" and "operational efficiency" like they just discovered fire.

That's not strategy. That's corporate Mad Libs.

Real strategy answers one simple question: What do you offer that people want but can't get anywhere else?

If your answer sounds like it came from a motivational poster, you don't have a strategy. You have good intentions and a PowerPoint deck.

Alex puts it bluntly: "If I start a company selling socks and say 'everyone wants socks,' am I going to be successful? No, because I can get socks from a million different places."

Most restaurant owners will tell you their strategy is "great customer service" or "quality ingredients." But every restaurant claims that. It's like saying your strategy is "not poisoning customers"—it's the baseline, not a differentiator.

The brutal reality? You're probably competing in what Alex calls "the quagmire"—battling thousands of other companies doing basically the same thing, just hoping your version of ordinary is slightly better than theirs.

Why nice leaders can't build strategy

Here's where things get really uncomfortable. When I asked Alex why so few companies manage to create real strategic clarity, his answer made me want to hide under my desk.

"Strategy is a dictatorial game," he said. "It's for an autocratic, frankly kind of assholish leader."

I nearly choked on my coffee. But then he continued:

"Look at every great strategic business leader—Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. People think it's a coincidence that they're all problematic personalities. It's not. This is how it works."

Wait. That can't be right.

But actually... maybe it is?

Think about it: Real strategy means killing projects people love. It means telling entire departments their work doesn't matter anymore. It means disappointing stakeholders who want you to be everything to everyone.

And for the past thirty years, we've been training leaders to be collaborative, inclusive, and consensus-driven. Which is great for team morale. Terrible for strategic clarity.

"Most people don't have any opinions at all," Alex explained. "They think they do, but what they call opinions are just the status quo voiced forcefully."

Strategy requires what psychologists call "disagreeableness"—the willingness to say no, to go against the grain, to make decisions that might make you temporarily unpopular.

The consensus trap

The companies that struggle most with strategy are often the ones that pride themselves on being "collaborative."

They want everyone's input on strategic direction. They seek consensus. They try to accommodate every concern.

But strategy is about focus. It's about choosing what NOT to do. And you can't get there through committee.

As Alex puts it: "You have to be a little bit more of a dictator than you already were."

This doesn't mean becoming an asshole for fun. It means caring more about the outcome than about being liked. It means being willing to make hard decisions when they need to be made.

Most naturally agreeable people (which includes most successful leaders) can develop this capacity. You just need to recognize that building real strategic direction requires moments of being unreasonable.

The strategy paradox

Here's the part that really messes with your head: having a real strategy makes you more likely to fail, not less.

This is what Michael Raynor calls "The Strategy Paradox." The opposite of strategy isn't failure—it's mediocrity.

When you commit to being truly different, you're making a big bet. You're saying "we're going to be the only company that does X" instead of "we're going to be slightly better at the same thing everyone else does."

That's inherently risky. Nintendo could have failed spectacularly with the Switch. Tesla could have gone bankrupt betting everything on electric vehicles when everyone said there was no market.

But here's the kicker: playing it safe—trying to be a little better than everyone else—is actually the riskier long-term strategy. You're guaranteed to be stuck in the quagmire forever, fighting on price and hoping your competitors don't eat your lunch.

Most leaders don't want to hear this because it means embracing genuine uncertainty. It means admitting that your carefully planned strategic direction might be completely wrong.

But that's exactly why it requires someone willing to be unreasonable. Someone who cares more about the possibility of breakthrough than the comfort of consensus.

The uncomfortable truth

Maybe our obsession with collaborative, inclusive leadership—while valuable in many areas—has systematically destroyed our ability to create strategic clarity.

Maybe the qualities that make someone a great team player are exactly the wrong qualities for strategic leadership.

Maybe you need to be willing to be temporarily unpopular in service of long-term clarity.

Because here's the thing: if you're not willing to disappoint some people to focus on what really matters, you'll keep doing what 99% of companies do—calling your to-do list a strategy and wondering why nothing changes.

The question isn't whether you're naturally disagreeable. The question is whether you care enough about actually building something distinctive to be disagreeable when it matters.

If you don't, enjoy the quagmire. It's crowded down there.