What strategy actually is

Good strategies feel constraining

Strategy exists to explain outcomes, not intentions.

If a strategy cannot account for why performance differs across firms facing similar conditions, it is not doing its job.

Ambition, vision, and effort are inputs. Strategy is the logic that connects external conditions to internal choices in a way that makes results intelligible.

This is why good strategies feel constraining:

They narrow what a firm will do, where it will compete, and which capabilities it will prioritise. Without those constraints, action multiplies but direction dissolves.

Most organisations call this flexibility. In practice, it is ambiguity.