The action: Say the opposite of your current strategy out loud. If it sounds stupid it’s probably not a strategy.

The long-form: One way of looking at strategy, according to Roger Martin, is as a series of choices that differentiate you from your competitors.

Often managers expect outsize results, while doing the same as everyone else.

Roger Martin (on Shane Parrish’s YouTube-channel)

A great way to test if you have made a strategic choice is to state the opposite of your strategy and check if that too is a viable strategy. If so, you’re good. If it sounds stupid, well, back to the drawing board.

An example: “We want to attract the best people to work for us.”
The opposite: “We want to attract the worst people.” It doesn’t really have the same ring to it. But if you instead said how you were going to be different from your competitors, you’re off to a good start.

Both of the following examples are real strategic choices: “We want to attract only the top 5% of the best schools by offering better salaries and career opportunities,” or “We want to hire average people, but offer them an above-average training programme and leadership.” Whether they will be winning strategies is another question, but they are better than the null-strategy that fails the sounds-dumb-test.

So state the opposite, and ditch the “We will win by having the best quality product, be employer of choice and be the most profitable company in our segment.”

See also: F40 – Strategy is saying no