Our need for innovation has shifted power closer to the source of that power-Us. We are the future.

How much time have you invested in thinking about strategy? How many options have you considered before the plan was written? How have you ensured that the thinking behind the plan is challenged? How much time do you spend exploring trends, possibilities and cool stuff? How much time is spent playing with ideas, hopes and dreams?

Strategy is about out-thinking your competition. Mark Zuckerberg, while at Harvard, built a website called Facemash ‘for fun’. Even today, Facebook believe that ‘done is better than perfect’.

The smart strategist allows strategy to be shaped by events. Good reactions can make great strategy. Strategy involves competition of goals, and the risk is the difference between those goals and the ability of the organization to achieve them. So part of the risk is created by the strategy.

With a clever strategy, each action is self-reinforcing. Each action creates more options that are mutually beneficial. Each victory is not just for today but for tomorrow.

Strategy is about shaping the future.

Ideally, you will develop strategic response to your place in the corporate lifecycle to identify new paths of strategic renewal. You will look for new growth curves that can be started early enough to replace declining products and you will try to identify whole new curves that will take the organisation to new levels of growth as a whole.