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Strategy Drift
Most organisations believe they have a strategy.
There is a plan, priorities are agreed and the direction is clear.
From the outside, this looks like intent but often, the drift has already begun.
How this happens
Strategy drift is rarely deliberate. It starts when assumptions harden, when plans outlive the reality, they were intended for and when execution takes over from reflection.
Delivery becomes the focus. Reviews become routine. Learning is compressed into reporting.
The strategy doesn’t disappear, it slowly loses contact with reality.
Why this matters now
In slower environments, drift was tolerable. In fast-changing environments, it is dangerous. Conditions shift faster than planning cycles. External changes propagate before internal alignment can catch up. What was once direction becomes inertia.
Technology accelerates this. Forecasts look precise. Scenarios look coherent. But coherence is not the same as relevance.
By the time drift is visible, it is already embedded.
What leaders often sense
Many leaders feel this before they can articulate it.
The strategy still sounds right, but decisions feel harder to justify. Trade-offs become blurred. Exceptions multiply.
People keep delivering, but the question “to what end?” becomes harder to answer.
Nothing appears broken. And yet, momentum feels misaligned.
How trust is really lost - and regained
Strategy drifts when candid feedback weakens.
When signals from reality arrive late. When learning is subordinated to delivery. When revisiting direction is seen as disruption rather than discipline.
Over time, effort continues — but coherence thins.
The organisation moves forward without being fully sure where “forward” now is.
What to look out for
Quiet signals that strategy is drifting:
• Priorities that make sense individually but not together
• Increasing exceptions to agreed direction
• Decisions justified by precedent rather than conditions
• Strategy reviews that confirm more than they question
• Execution that accelerates while clarity declines
Individually, these seem manageable. Together, they reshape outcomes.
Things worth thinking about
Not fixes. Just attention.
• Which assumptions are no longer being tested?
• Where has delivery crowded out learning?
• What conditions have changed without being fully acknowledged?
• What would need to be true for the strategy to still make sense?
These questions slow momentum. That’s why they matter.
Direction under change
In the years ahead, strategy will be less about setting direction and more about maintaining alignment with changing conditions.
Drift is not a failure of intent.
It is a failure to stay in contact with reality long enough to adapt.
And increasingly, the difference between relevance and irrelevance will be how early drift is noticed — and how seriously it is taken.
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