Strategy is one of the most frequently used words in business. It appears in board meetings, political speeches, startup pitches and annual reports. Organisations invest millions in strategy consultants, strategy workshops and strategic planning processes.
Yet ask a room full of leaders to define strategy, and you will rarely hear the same answer twice.
Some will describe it as a vision for the future. Others will call it a plan. Some will argue it is about setting priorities or allocating resources. Others will define it as creating competitive advantage.
They are all partly right.
But none of them fully capture what strategy is.
Perhaps the problem is that we have spent too much time treating strategy as a noun-as something an organisation possesses-rather than as a verb, something people actively do.
The invention of strategic planning
The modern discipline of strategy emerged after the Second World War, when organisations grew larger, markets became more complex and leaders needed new ways of coordinating decisions across increasingly global businesses.
During the second half of the twentieth century, strategic planning became a discipline in its own right. Organisations invested enormous amounts of time producing long-term plans based on forecasts, market analyses and carefully defined objectives.
The assumption was straightforward: if we understand the environment well enough, we can predict it. And if we can predict it, we can plan for it.
This approach gave us valuable tools. Michael Porter taught organisations to think carefully about competitive positioning and the importance of making deliberate choices. Richard Rumelt reminded us that good strategy is not a collection of ambitions but a coherent response to a significant challenge. These contributions remain foundational because they force leaders to think beyond operational efficiency and ask the more difficult question: What makes us different, and why does that difference matter?
But they also reflected a world that was considerably more stable than the one we inhabit today.
The problem with treating strategy as a plan
One of the most influential critics of strategic planning was Henry Mintzberg.
After studying how managers actually worked, Mintzberg noticed something curious. Strategy rarely unfolded according to plan. Instead, organisations adapted continuously. Decisions accumulated. Experiments succeeded or failed. Opportunities appeared unexpectedly. Over time, a pattern emerged, not because someone had designed every step, but because people learned their way forward. He called this emergent strategy, arguing that real strategies almost always combine deliberate intentions with adaptation to changing circumstances.
This observation fundamentally changed how many scholars understood strategy.
Rather than asking, "What strategy does this organisation have?", they began asking, "How is strategy actually made?"
That question eventually led to what became known as strategy-as-practice. Instead of studying strategic plans, researchers studied meetings, conversations, routines, disagreements, experiments and decisions. Strategy was no longer viewed primarily as a document. It became something people accomplished together through everyday practice.
This shift matters because it moves strategy away from prediction and towards learning.
Why strategy matters even more in the age of AI
Artificial intelligence has made strategic analysis dramatically faster.
Today, anyone can ask an AI to analyse a market, identify competitors, generate scenarios or draft a strategic plan in seconds. Early research even suggests that large language models can perform aspects of strategic analysis at a level comparable to experienced entrepreneurs in certain tasks.
If strategy were only analysis, we might conclude that machines are gradually replacing strategists. But strategy has never only been analysis. Every significant strategic decision still depends on human judgement.
What assumptions do we choose to challenge?
What risks are worth taking?
Which opportunities fit our values?
What are we willing to say no to?
These are not analytical questions. They are social, political and ethical ones. AI can generate options. It cannot decide which future is worth creating.
Strategy is becoming a collective practice
Ironically, the more capable AI becomes, the more valuable the human dimensions of strategy become. But because organisations do not change when a strategy is written. They change when people understand it, challenge it, believe in it and begin acting on it together.
The strategist's role is therefore changing.
We do not need and expert, The experts are in the system. The role of the strategis has changed to the one of a facilitator. With less planning session and more sense-making and co-creation. More sense-making and less focused on producing certainty. The strategist need to facilitate and help people navigate uncertainty together.
This is not a rejection of strategy. It is a return to what strategy has always been at its best: a disciplined way of making sense of an uncertain world and choosing how to act within it.
Towards a living strategy
At LYNG Agency, we believe strategy is not something you finish. It is something you practice.
It is the ability to notice weak signals before they become obvious trends. To ask better questions before jumping to solutions. To design small experiments instead of betting everything on certainty. To revisit assumptions when reality changes. And, perhaps most importantly, to build the relationships that allow organisations to adapt without losing their sense of purpose.
This thinking is at the heart of Living Strategy, our approach to strategy courses and strategic consulting.
We work with leaders, teams and organisations who want to move beyond traditional strategic planning and create strategies that people can understand, act on and adapt as the world changes.
In that sense, strategy is less like architecture and more like navigation. A navigator does not control the weather. They continuously observe it, adjust their course and remain clear about where they are trying to go.
Perhaps that has always been the real work of strategy.
Artificial intelligence has simply made it impossible to forget.
