Three steps to do strategy when you’re not supposed to
Because life is too short to just do what you're told
#3 - 2025/09/14
Welcome to The Intentional Manager, a pragmatic and practical take on strategy, leadership and change management that you can use.
I often have friends complain that their teams don’t have strategies, but, whenever I push back with “do it yourself”, I am told that no, they can’t.
Here’s my attempt at convincing them that, in fact, they can.
Have you ever thought that your team would benefit from more structure and direction, because you are all doing a bunch of things, but not really going anywhere?
Or maybe felt a bit frustrated, because you have been doing your job for years and feel ready to contribute to choosing what is done rather than only how it is done?
If “yes”, your following thought was probably: “We need a strategy” or “I would like to do strategy”.
But you can’t.
Because you are an individual contributor or because your boss is the only one who “does strategy” or because he doesn’t and you don’t want to risk being perceived as threatening or arrogant.
To you I would say... do it anyway!
I wasn’t born to follow - and neither were you.
These are the three steps I would take to make it real:
Narrow the scope.
Broaden the scope and reverse-engineer your team’s strategy.
Become your manager’s strategy partner.
If you haven’t done so already, I suggest to go back and read “The age-old question: what is strategy?”, as most of what follows is based on those concepts.
The pushback
“But I can’t simply do a thing that is not in my job description!”
Not only you can, but you have to:
You can: if you have been doing your job for more than 9 months, you should by now have some free time to spend as you wish or, at least, you should be confident enough to create some time to spend as you wish - for example, you could spend it on strategy.
You have to: if you want to position yourself for future success, be it being promoted or simply surviving the next inevitable round of layoffs, you need to increase the value you create for the company and working on strategy, if only because very few do, is a very good way to do so.
1. Narrow the scope
Narrowing the scope means focusing on the circle of control, that includes things that you care about and over which you can exert “absolute” power. This allows you the chance to strategize without having to worry too much about others’ desires.
Depending on your situation, it might mean focusing on yourself only or even on a specific piece of your job.
As you start executing your strategy, three things will inevitably happen:
You will start having free time. The essence of strategy is choice, which is mostly about choosing what NOT to do and creates time in two ways:
By evaluating your current activity portfolio according to whether it support your strategy or not, you will discard most items at “useless”. These are the things you will just not do, avoid, delegate, optimize or automate, in any case “creating” time.
By aligning the pieces to a common goal, you will create a positively reinforcing feedback loop (a.k.a. compounding effect or virtuous cycle), with each piece supporting and reinforcing the others, once again creating efficiency and therefore “new” time.
You will build a reputation as someone who delivers value. While most people are driven by activities, you will be consistently delivering value. It’s not magic, but, once again, the power that comes from aligning all the pieces and disregarding those that don’t fit the broader game.
1 + 2 = credibility.
Once there’s enough credibility in the bank, you’re ready for step 2: tackling your team’s strategy.
The pushback
“There is nothing I’m in complete control, because I have to do what my manager bids. Plus, I can’t simply decide what not to do”.
There is always room to maneuver.
If your manager asks you to follow up with a customer, you can choose how to script and approach the conversation. If your manager tells you to work on project X, you can choose to do so by involving people A or B, which metrics to track and so forth.
As for disregarding things, build a business case to remove them altogether or work on optimizing or automating the process.
If you feel like you still don’t enough control, narrow the scope further.
2. Broaden the scope
Broadening the scope is about looking at things from a higher level and understanding how they fit in the broader picture.
If you are a manager, it means thinking at a director’s level; if you are an individual contributor, at a manager’s level.
It certainly does NOT mean “stop doing your tasks”, but rather “deliver on your objectives, but also think about how they contribute to the broader team/function/department/company goals”.
Two ways to do so:
You can go to your boss and directly ask "what's our strategy?". I would try this first (maybe less bluntly) because it doesn't cost much, but I would not be expecting real results. Very few spend time deeply thinking about strategy and chances are your boss will not be one those few.
You can reverse-engineer your team’s strategy and start from there.
Reverse-engineer your team's strategy
Pick 2 or 3 big past decisions and dissect them.
Here are a few questions to ask to start playing entomologist:
What broader goal did the decision serve?
What did it optimize for and what did it sacrifice?
Who made the decision and what drives that person?
How was the decision made?
Your goal is to understand how these past decisions fit together or, to put it differently, to understand your boss implicit strategy.
Mind you, the implicit strategy might very well be “I don’t want to make decisions and so I go with the flow” or “I want to minimize my personal risk”, but some level of consistency is always there.
If you can’t find it, look closer: we each live in our own “bounded reality” made of personal beliefs and experiences and hopes and things only we see, but, within these, we all try to act consistently.
3. Become your boss strategy partner
Now you are credible and you have a decent understanding of your team’s strategy: it is time to bring everything to your boss and start the strategy conversation.
It can be done directly - “This is what I understand about our strategy given these decisions, does it make sense?” - or more subtly - “I was thinking of doing this thing in the project on which I am working, as it aligns with these past decisions: what do you think?”.
Whatever the approach, I am ready to bet that your boss will be surprised, because not only you have been consistently delivering value (step 1), but you are also clearly one that is able to connect the dots (step 2) - which makes you a rare breed indeed.
As my coach always says “Be the wind beneath their wings”: and a strategic wind you just became!
And there you have it.
Strategy is an incredible way to have fun while ensuring that what you do actually creates value and I believe that, although you might not have “strategy” in your job title, you can (and should) do so anyway.
A good way to go about it is narrowing your scope first, broadening it then by reverse-engineering your team’s strategy and finally becoming your boss strategy partner.
Thanks for reading,
Luca
PS I’d love to hear your thoughts on this: feel free to hit reply and send them over!