Strategy Meets Reality Podcast

Strategy can look brilliant on paper and still fail the moment it meets the organisation that has to deliver it. We sit down with Gavin Rouch, an organisational development practitioner, to get honest about why that happens and what to do instead. We talk about organisations as interconnected systems in all their messy glory, where incentives, history, board pressure, and filtered information create strategic blind spots that senior leaders rarely see from the strategy room.

We dig into what “good strategy execution” actually demands: participation that brings operational reality into the process, decision-making that generates real options, and the humility to speak in probabilities rather than perform certainty. Gavin shares why strategies often become propaganda, full of glittering generalities, why tough choices should provoke anxiety, and why the most valuable work is often the dialogue behind the tools. We also explore how emotion and sensemaking shape whether people invest in the direction, and why broadcasting strategy through comms alone leaves teams cold.

From meeting waste and invisible knowledge work to HR and L&D translating strategy into capability building, we map practical ways to close the gap between intent and delivery. We finish with a clear message: strategy is not the exclusive domain of the senior leadership, and everyone has more agency than they think. If this sparked a few uncomfortable truths, subscribe for more, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review with the biggest strategy gap you see right now.
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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast
📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy only matters if it survives contact with reality. We sit down with operations chief Jayson Coil to unpack how intent, trust, and disciplined initiative turn a tidy plan into effective action when the stakes are high and time is short. From wildfire lines to boardrooms, we dig into what leaders can do today to bridge the gap between strategy and execution without slipping into control for control’s sake.

Jayson shares frontline stories where readbacks, backbriefs, and honest After Action Reviews exposed interpretation gaps that would have sunk a plan. We talk through building contingencies that go beyond a single preferred course of action, running pre-mortems and red teams that actually change decisions, and the hard but vital habit of judging decision quality separately from outcomes. You will hear why punishing by outcome kills initiative and how to evaluate information sources, conduct bias checks, and make trade-offs instead.

Mission command takes centre stage: not a slogan, but a system. We explore the concrete behaviours that build climate—leaders inviting critique, defining constraints and intent, and creating safe-to-fail simulations where everyone, including the boss, is accountable. We look at aligning policies, incentives, and discipline so they do not undermine empowerment, and why competence in standard practice is the passport to freedom to deviate when context demands it. Along the way, Jayson offers practical tests you can apply: if every deviation needs permission, you have not built mission command; if teams can act on intent and you will back sound judgment, you are getting close.

If you want a clearer strategy, sharper execution, and a team that can adapt under pressure, this conversation delivers tools you can use: red teaming, readbacks, realistic training, and a relentless focus on “What is different today?” rather than “What’s the same.” Subscribe, share with a leader who needs it, and leave a short review with your biggest takeaway so we can keep raising the bar together.

Connect with Jayson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjaysoncoil/
Jayson's Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WQ_pQL8_WGlIrAcxSpKOQqxhyLNVGKn3/view?usp=sharing
Send Mike a Message
Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.
🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast
📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy doesn’t fail in spreadsheets; it fails when people can’t see themselves inside it. We sit down with David Slowly—journalist turned radio producer turned B2B strategist—to unpack a practical, repeatable way to turn direction into action through narrative. David traces how radio taught him to spark imagination without visuals and how working with data-driven teams demanded proof that stories change minds. The result is a simple 5-4-3-2-1 toolkit leaders can use on Monday morning: five Ws for raw facts, four Ps (princes, purses, pets, places) to hook attention, three acts to structure challenge–struggle–resolve, two states to maintain emotional momentum, and one killer headline that sticks when the room closes the deck.

We stress why most “strategies” read like to-do lists and how to shift from internal busyness to external effects. You’ll hear how to define the effect you want on your environment, then show what you will actually do to enable those effects to emerge. We build vision stories that make future states tangible without pretending certainty, and we argue for embracing ambiguity as a source of agency. People act when they feel trusted to fill intelligent gaps. That’s where identity matters: know what your organisation is today—capabilities, constraints, ethos—so you can choose the next credible moves and the options they unlock.

Expect hands-on tactics you can apply now: one-message emails that reduce friction, headlines that are promise, intrigue, or news, and live read-backs to test whether a message landed. We show how to use real places and specifics to feel true to your culture, map likely struggles by function, and define a crisp resolve: when the smoke clears, what will be observably different out there. Tell the journey and cast your audience as the hero; they’ll start pre-solving as you speak. If people can’t picture it, they won’t do it—so give them a story that fits the work and earns belief.

If this conversation helps you rethink how you communicate strategy, subscribe, share it with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with your one killer headline.

Find David's work here: https://harveydavid.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Why-You-Need-A-Business-Story-And-How-To-Create-It-1.pdf
Send Mike a Message
Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.
🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast
📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy often treats the future like a straight road. We treat it like a landscape. With Lasse Jonasson, Chief Foresight Officer at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, we unpack how to swap predictions for preparedness and why language is the first tool of good strategy. When leaders share a vocabulary for assumptions, signals, and scenarios, conversations stop drifting and decisions start compounding.

We dig into practical moves that any team can run this quarter. Start by stress testing your three-year plan against plausible ten-year futures: what must stay true for it to work, what signals would disprove it, and who owns the call to pivot. We show how to identify elements of your organisation that endure across scenarios and those that demand redesign. Rather than chase certainty, build optionality with explicit triggers, resource pathways, and decision rights. You’ll hear why “strategic ambiguity” is not vagueness but a guardrailed space where discovery and delivery both win.

AI and geopolitics headline the change, but their real impact lies in how they reshape relationships, processes, and business models. Most leaders explore AI for efficiency; the advantage arrives when you reimagine work and value creation. We contrast the machine metaphor of management with the ecosystem metaphor, making the case for cultures that sense, adapt, and learn in public. We also challenge tidy hero stories and winner’s myths, highlighting how documenting assumptions and debates—now easier with AI—helps teams separate preparation from luck and improve cycle after cycle.

If you’re ready to make strategy a living practice—futures literacy, scenario thinking, and identity-aware choices—this conversation will give you the prompts and patterns to begin. Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns a roadmap, and leave a review with the one assumption you plan to test next.
Send Mike a Message
Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.
🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast
📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy doesn’t live in a binder; it lives in motion. We sit down with practitioner-author Erik Schön to reconnect strategy with doing, drawing on Sun Tzu’s correlative pairs, Boyd’s OODA orientation, and Wardley Maps to turn abstract plans into concrete manoeuvres. From the first minutes, we challenge the ritual of annual decks and fixed KPIs, arguing for shorter strategy loops that privilege learning, outcomes, and a clear line of sight to the customer.

Erik unpacks the engine behind durable advantage: the dance of expected and surprise. Customers must get the table stakes they anticipate, but loyalty and growth emerge when you add a well-timed, positive surprise. Think iPhone’s shock, or Ericsson’s practice of shipping at least one “desire to use” feature per release. We translate this into practical moves: mapping capabilities, exposing gaps, and deciding when to build, buy, or outsource. Wardley Maps become the team’s shared terrain, shifting debates from personalities to dependencies and evolution—from novel to commodity.

We also tackle culture and cadence. Quarterly retrospectives and prospectives beat annual ceremonies because they compress feedback, curb KPI tunnel vision, and empower small experiments with fast ROI. Drawing on mission command, we favour firm intent with flexible plans: leaders set outcomes, teams design manoeuvres. Along the way, we explore why some firms stall on “expected, expected, expected,” how to avoid self-induced ambiguity, and what Eastern comfort with change can teach Western efficiency cultures. Real-world examples—from Netflix’s global-local bet to Nvidia’s pivot from gaming to AI—show how capability compounding and orientation shifts tilt markets.

The close is a call to shape the conditions before you need a burning platform. Make the terrain visible, invest time in improvement work, and reward independent thinking within shared intent. If this conversation helps you see strategy as a daily practice—mapping, choosing, experimenting—tap follow, share with a colleague who loves real strategy, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Find Erik's work here:
blog post: https://medium.com/an-idea/the-art-of-strategy-ac4165c0c085 
Book site: https://yokosopress.jimdofree.com/#ArtOfStrategy
Send Mike a Message
Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.
🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast
📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/