When Strategy Feels Overwhelming: You're Doing it Wrong
Jan 10, 2026
If the word strategy makes your shoulders tense a little, you’re not alone.
Last week’s blog survey made something crystal clear to me:
80% of you want strategy to feel less overwhelming and more actionable.
You also told me you want simple tools and frameworks you can use immediately, not ideas that sound good but go nowhere on Monday morning.
National research shows 85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy which explains why alignment erodes quickly. The solution: Leaders need to do a more consistent job communicating our strategy to everyone in our organizations, not just our leadership teams. I’ve been guilty of that. Have you?
This next stat concerns me even more.
“95% of employees don’t understand their company’s strategy.”
What? How can that be? Here’s my theory based on what I’ve experienced over three decades in leadership. Most people on our teams who don’t see themselves as leaders, don’t bother to look at the big picture or actively listen in staff meetings. There, I said it. That dirty little secret is out in the open now. It’s frustrating for sure but a reality we leaders need to navigate. They like being worker bees just responsible for their little piece of the pie. Let’s talk about strategy the way real leaders live it: messy, fast-moving, and very human.
First, a reframe: Strategy Isn’t Complicated. We Make It That Way
Roger Martin, former dean of Rotman School of Management, puts it simply:
“Strategy is about making choices, not about doing everything.”
Read that again.
Strategy isn’t about predicting the future. It’s not about perfect plans. It’s about choosing what you’ll focus on, and just as importantly, what you won’t. I actually think that’s the harder part.
Most leaders don’t struggle with strategy because they aren’t smart enough. They struggle because:
- They’re trying to solve everything at once
- They’re rewarded for activity, not clarity
- They’re operating in constant reaction mode
Let’s slow it down and make it usable.
A Simple Strategy Filter You Can Use Today
Here’s a tool I share often because it works in real life:
The 3-Question Strategy Filter
Before saying yes to a new initiative, meeting, or “urgent” request, ask:
- Does this clearly support our top priority right now?
- If we do this, what won’t we do?
- What problem are we actually trying to solve?
That’s it.
No whiteboard required.
Peter Drucker said:
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.”
These questions help surface what’s not being acknowledged. Often, it’s misaligned priorities, fuzzy goals, or fear-based decisions.
If something doesn’t pass this filter, it’s not strategic, it’s just busy.
Strategy Happens in Small Moves, Not Grand Declarations
One of the biggest myths about strategy is that it has to be bold and sweeping. For nearly 13 years, I’ve executed a “service to success” strategy. I believed the more we served our community the more they’d support us making us more successful. At first it was just a hunch but as the years passed, the data proved it worked and still works. While the ways we’ve served have definitely changed, that one strategic message has not. I say it at every staff meeting, in every leadership team meeting at every public speaking engagement.
James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) reminds us:
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
Translation for leaders:
Your strategy lives in your weekly decisions, not your annual retreat.
Try This: The Weekly Strategy Check (10 Minutes)
At the end of each week, ask yourself and your team:
- What did we spend most of our time on?
- Did that move our top priority forward?
- What’s one thing we should stop doing next week?
Stopping is strategic.
Delegating is strategic.
Clarifying is strategic.
A Framework for When Everything Feels Important
When leaders tell me, “Everything is a priority,” I gently push back because if everything is important, nothing is. I learned that watching Disney’s Incredibles movie.
Here’s a simple framework borrowed from President Eisenhower’s thinking modernized for leadership:
The Focus Four
Categorize work into four buckets:
- Critical Now – Must be done immediately
- Strategic Important – Drives long-term success
- Delegatable – Needs to be done, but not by you
- Noise – Adds activity, not value
Your job as a leader is to protect time for #2. It’s not always easy but that’s where strategy actually lives.
As Warren Buffett says:
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
Strategy Should Create Relief, Not Pressure
If your strategy is making people anxious, confused, or exhausted it’s not working.
Good strategy:
- Reduces decision fatigue
- Creates alignment
- Makes it easier for people to act without constant approval
And most importantly, it answers this question for your team:
“What matters most right now?”
That’s leadership.
You don’t need a new title, a bigger budget, or a perfect plan to be strategic.
You need:
- Fewer priorities
- Clear choices
- Simple tools you’ll actually use
And you’ve already taken the first step by naming what you want more of.
Next week, we’ll go even deeper into how to help your team think strategically without overwhelming them because strategy shouldn’t sit in your head. Everyone on our teams should think that way and it should show up in how work gets done.
Until then, choose one thing to simplify.
That choice alone? That’s strategy my friend.