The elaborate performance of planning without intention to act
Strategy Theater is the elaborate performance of planning without intention to act. It's busy work disguised as strategy - meetings, frameworks, and documents that avoid real decisions.
• "Let's schedule another planning session"
• "We need more stakeholder input"
• "Let's create a working group"
• 50-slide strategy decks
• SWOT analyses that sit in drawers
• Mission statements no one remembers
• "Everyone needs to be aligned"
• "Let's get buy-in from all departments"
• "We can't move until everyone agrees"
• New methodology every quarter
• Training on planning processes
• Frameworks to choose frameworks
More planning feels safer than acting. If you're still strategizing, you can't fail yet. It's procrastination dressed up as diligence.
Real strategy requires saying no to good opportunities. Strategy theater keeps all options open by never actually choosing anything.
Strategy theater feels productive. You're in meetings, creating documents, having important conversations. It looks like leadership.
"We will decide on our three priorities by Friday at 3 PM. No extensions. No more input needed."
"Let's table this," "We need more research," "Let's form a committee," "Everyone needs to weigh in."
Every decision is YES or NO. No "maybe," no "let's explore," no "it depends." Choose or lose.
No frameworks. No consensus-building. No 12-week strategic planning processes. We surface what's buried, force the override, and prescribe the intervention.
60 minutes. One room. We name the lie you're telling yourself about why you can't decide. Then you decide.
Stop performing strategy. Start amplifying signal. Get the intervention that ends the theater.
DEPLOY INTERVENTIONUNDERSTAND SIGNAL NOISE