Most people don’t have a strategy. They have a fantasy.
A strategy isn’t a plan. It’s a way of seeing.
Every engagement I do — coaching, consulting, red-teaming — runs through the same three questions. They come from The Grey Book on Strategy Coaching, and you can run them on anything: a business, a career, a negotiation, a lawsuit.
A — What are you trying to achieve?
Not what you tell people you want. What your calendar, your budget, and your attention say you want. Be specific. “Grow the business” isn’t an achievement, it’s a wish. If your goals, your behavior, and reality don’t match, you don’t have a strategy — you have a fantasy.
B — What is the reality?
The field as it actually is, not as you wish it were. The numbers, the constraints, the competitors, the parts nobody wants to talk about. Most people never answer this one honestly, because the honest answer is uncomfortable. That’s exactly what makes it valuable. Reality is the only ground a strategy can stand on.
C — What opportunities haven’t you considered?
This is where the needle moves — usually by about one percent, which is usually everything. Here’s the structural problem: everyone inside an organization is paid to believe the current plan. Their money is tied to the existing frame, so they can’t see outside it. I stand outside the field with nothing tied to the status quo. That’s the whole edge: I can point at the move nobody inside is allowed to see.
Then you assemble it. The answers go through the Strategy Assembly Protocol: every candidate move gets reality-checked against B, measured against A, and ranked by leverage. The fantasies fall away on their own. What survives is usually a short list — and the top of the list is usually obvious once you see it. It always was. You just couldn’t see it from inside.
A quick example
A company I worked with wanted growth — that was A. The reality — B — was that one product line was carrying the whole business while two others bled cash and attention. The unconsidered move — C — was to kill the losers and put everything behind the winner. Nobody inside could propose it; their budgets and headcount were tied to the dying lines. Constraints didn’t reduce the strategy. Constraints focused it.
That’s the method. Three questions, honestly answered, assembled without mercy.
The Grey Book on Strategy Coaching goes deeper — 21 ideas in three arcs, with the field worksheet. Coaching goes further: we run your situation through the frame together.
