An exercise to test the flexibility of your strategy

At the core of any business strategy is making a bet on what you believe the future to look like. It is necessary to take a stance, but, like any investor, companies need to hedge their bets. Smart companies create options for themselves not just to hedge, but to capture outsized upswings as well. To create options, you need a strong viewpoint even if it’s inaccurate.

Without a viewpoint, you can’t allocate resources. You can’t build new capabilities. Allocating resources requires substantial logic and rationale. But then again, your mental models need to be continuously updated. For a company, what’s needed when making a strategic choice is this: have a viewpoint widely shared, but fully acknowledge the inherent uncertainty.

The exercise

So, today, try a simple exercise. Look at your current strategy and where you have placed your…