An organization produces a thirty-page strategy document. It explains market trends, competitive dynamics, customer needs, and technological shifts. It articulates a vision for where the organization should go. It describes capabilities to be built and markets to be captured. The document is polished, well-researched, and compelling.
Six months later, nothing has changed. The organization is executing the same initiatives it was before the strategy was written. Resources are allocated the same way. Teams are working on the same projects. Priorities haven’t shifted.
The strategy wasn’t strategy. It was a narrative. The document told a story about why change is necessary. It didn’t specify what changes. It didn’t allocate resources differently. It didn’t stop work or start work. It didn’t create new accountability or change decision rights.
The narrative felt like strategy because it was strategic in subject matter. It discussed markets, competition, and capabilities. But strategy isn’t determined by subject matter. Strategy is determined by operational specificity. Does it specify what changes? Does it reallocate resources? Does it create commitments?
Most strategy is narrative. It explains the world and articulates aspirations without specifying operational changes. Organizations produce narrative because narrative is politically safe and strategically useless. Understanding when strategy becomes narrative requires examining what distinguishes them and why organizations prefer narrative despite its ineffectiveness.
The Difference Between Strategy and Narrative
Strategy and narrative are different types of communication.
Narrative answers: Why should we change? It explains market forces, competitive threats, customer evolution, and technological disruption. It builds the case for change. It motivates and inspires. It creates a shared understanding of environmental conditions.
Strategy answers: What will we change? It specifies resource reallocation, stopped work, started work, changed decision rights, modified incentives, and altered processes. It creates operational commitments. It enables execution.
Organizations need both. The narrative builds support for change. The strategy specifies the change. But organizations often produce narrative and call it strategy. The document has the word “strategy” in the title. It addresses strategic topics. But it lacks operational specificity.
Narrative strategy says: “We will become customer-centric.”
Actual strategy says: “Customer support budget increases 40%. Product roadmap decisions require customer research validation. Sales compensation shifts from volume to retention. Engineering prioritizes reliability over features. Marketing measures engagement not acquisition.”
The narrative version is motivational. The strategy version is operational. The narrative creates aspiration. The strategy creates change. Organizations produce narrative because narrative is easier. Then they’re confused when nothing changes.
How Narrative Becomes Strategy
Narrative becomes strategy through several mechanisms:
Strategic planning as ritual. Organizations have annual strategic planning cycles. The cycle requires producing a strategy document. The document must look like strategy: market analysis, competitive positioning, vision statements, capability development plans. The form is correct. The content is narrative. But the ritual is satisfying.
Consulting as validation. Organizations hire consultants to develop strategy. Consultants are skilled at narrative. They produce compelling decks explaining market dynamics and strategic options. The analysis is high-quality. The recommendations are generic. “Focus on customer value.” “Build digital capabilities.” “Pursue operational excellence.” The narrative is sophisticated. The operational specificity is absent.
Consensus as constraint. Strategy development involves many stakeholders. Each stakeholder has opinions. Reaching consensus requires compromise. The compromise is abstraction. “Grow profitably in core markets while exploring adjacent opportunities.” This language is acceptable to everyone because it commits to nothing. The consensus process filters out operational specificity, leaving only narrative.
Vision as substitute. Leadership articulates an inspiring vision. The vision describes a desired future state. “We will be the most trusted provider in our industry.” The vision is compelling. Vision statements are narrative. They describe destinations without specifying paths. Organizations mistake vision for strategy because both discuss the future.
Analysis as activity. Strategic planning involves extensive analysis: market sizing, competitive benchmarking, customer segmentation, capability assessment. The analysis produces insights. Insights are narrative. They explain the environment. They don’t specify decisions. Organizations mistake analytical activity for strategic decision-making. The deliverable is a narrative about the environment, not decisions about resource allocation.
The result is documents that read like strategy, feel like strategy, and are called strategy, but function as narrative. They explain why change is necessary without specifying what changes.
Why Organizations Produce Narrative
Organizations produce narrative strategy because narrative is politically safer than actual strategy.
Narrative doesn’t create losers. Actual strategy reallocates resources. Some teams get more. Others get less. The losers resist. Narrative avoids reallocation. “We will invest in innovation” doesn’t specify where investment comes from. No team loses. Political conflict is avoided.
Narrative preserves optionality. Actual strategy commits resources to specific choices. If the choices are wrong, the commitment is costly. Narrative maintains flexibility. “We will pursue digital transformation” doesn’t commit to specific digital investments. Options remain open. Future flexibility is preserved.
Narrative signals thoughtfulness. Leaders are expected to think strategically. Producing strategy documents signals the leader is thoughtful and forward-looking. The document doesn’t need to specify operational changes to fulfill this signaling function. The existence of the document is sufficient.
Narrative unifies through ambiguity. Diverse stakeholders have conflicting preferences. Specific strategic choices favor some preferences over others. Abstract narrative can be interpreted to support multiple preferences. “Customer-centric” means different things to different people. The ambiguity enables unity. Specificity would create division.
Narrative avoids accountability. Actual strategy creates falsifiable commitments. “Increase market share from 15% to 20%” can be measured. Success or failure is clear. Narrative creates non-falsifiable aspirations. “Become a market leader” is subjectively defined. Success can be claimed regardless of outcomes. Leadership avoids accountability for specific commitments.
Narrative is easier to produce. Actual strategy requires difficult decisions about resource allocation, stopped work, and changed incentives. These decisions require coordination across functions, negotiation with stakeholders, and willingness to create unhappy constituencies. Narrative requires writing about markets and capabilities. Writing is easier than deciding.
The incentive structure favors narrative. Leaders get credit for producing strategy documents without bearing costs of operational commitments. Organizations get the appearance of strategic direction without the disruption of actual change. The equilibrium is stable until external pressure forces change.
The Cost of Narrative Strategy
Narrative strategy creates systematic costs:
Execution confusion. Employees read the strategy document and don’t know what to do differently. The narrative says “be customer-centric.” How does this change today’s work? Without operational specificity, employees continue current work. They assume they’re already being customer-centric or they interpret the directive in ways that don’t require changing behavior.
Resource misallocation. Without strategic resource reallocation, resources remain allocated to legacy priorities. The organization continues investing in declining businesses, maintaining obsolete capabilities, and pursuing low-value opportunities. The narrative says to pursue new directions. The resource allocation perpetuates old directions. Strategy and execution diverge.
Accountability vacuum. Narrative strategy doesn’t create clear accountability. Who is responsible for “becoming customer-centric”? Everyone and no one. When the aspiration isn’t achieved, who fails? The lack of specific commitments prevents attribution of failure. Organizational learning doesn’t happen.
Coordination failure. Teams interpret narrative strategy differently. Product thinks customer-centric means more user research. Engineering thinks it means better reliability. Sales thinks it means flexible contracts. Each interpretation is plausible. None are coordinated. The organization fragments into incompatible local interpretations.
Strategic drift. Without operational specificity, the organization pursues whatever opportunities arise. Each opportunity can be justified as serving the narrative strategy. “This customer request aligns with being customer-centric.” The cumulative effect is the organization does many things that individually seem strategic but collectively are incoherent.
Cynicism. Employees experience repeated strategic planning cycles that produce narrative without operational change. They learn that strategy documents are theater. They stop taking strategy seriously. When actual strategic decisions are made, employees are cynical and disengaged. The organization has trained them that strategy is performance.
Wasted effort. Strategic planning consumes significant resources: executive time, employee workshops, consultant fees, analysis effort, documentation work. If the output is narrative rather than operational change, the resources are wasted. The organization would be better off not producing strategy documents than producing documents that don’t create change.
The costs accumulate. Organizations cycle through multiple strategy documents, each producing narrative, none producing operational change. The accumulated cost is years of strategic planning effort with minimal strategic progress.
How to Recognize Narrative
Narrative strategy has identifiable patterns:
Abstract language. “Customer-centric.” “Data-driven.” “Innovative.” “Agile.” These words are aspirational but operationally meaningless. They don’t specify decisions or actions. The actual strategy uses concrete language: “Increase customer support headcount by 20 FTE.” “Implement weekly data review meetings with executive participation.” “Allocate 15% of engineering time to experimental projects.”
Passive voice. “Capabilities will be built.” “Markets will be explored.” “Processes will be improved.” Passive voice obscures who does what. Actual strategy uses active voice with clear ownership: “Engineering will build.” “Sales will explore.” “Operations will improve.” The ownership is explicit.
Future conditional. “We would benefit from it.” “It would be valuable too.” “We should consider.” Conditional language signals aspiration without commitment. Actual strategy uses declarative statements: “We will.” “We are.” “Starting Q2.” The commitment is clear.
No resource specification. Narrative strategy describes desired capabilities without specifying resource reallocation. “Build digital capabilities” doesn’t say where the resources come from. Actual strategy specifies resource sources: “Reduce legacy system maintenance budget by 30% to fund digital platform team.”
No stopped work. Narrative strategy lists things to start. It doesn’t list things to stop. Actual strategy pairs started work with stopped work. “Start: AI product features. Stop: Manual workflow customization.” The trade-off is explicit.
No metrics. Narrative strategy describes desired outcomes without measurement criteria. “Improve customer satisfaction” doesn’t specify how satisfaction is measured or what targets define success. Actual strategy includes metrics: “Increase NPS from 32 to 45 within 12 months.”
No decision rules. Narrative strategy doesn’t specify how to resolve conflicts or make trade-offs. Actual strategy includes decision frameworks: “When features conflict, prioritize enterprise customer needs over SMB needs.”
No timeline. Narrative strategy describes a vision without specifying when changes occur. Actual strategy includes timelines: “Q1: hire team. Q2: build platform. Q3: migrate first customers. Q4: full migration.”
Organizations can audit their strategy documents against these patterns. Documents heavy on abstract language, passive voice, future conditional, and light on resources, metrics, and timelines are narrative, not strategy.
When Narrative Is Appropriate
Narrative has legitimate uses. It becomes problematic when it substitutes for strategy.
Building the case for change. Before strategy can be executed, stakeholders must understand why change is necessary. The narrative explains market shifts, competitive threats, and capability gaps. This builds support for strategic decisions. The narrative is preparatory, not the strategy itself.
Creating shared understanding. Organizations need shared mental models of their environment. Narrative provides common language and frameworks for thinking about markets, customers, and competition. The shared understanding enables coordination. But understanding isn’t execution.
Inspiring commitment. Strategic change is difficult. People need motivation to persist through difficulty. Narrative provides inspirational context. It connects daily work to a larger purpose. The inspiration supports execution but doesn’t substitute for it.
External communication. Investors, customers, and partners need to understand the organization’s direction. Narrative communicates strategic intent without revealing proprietary operational details. The external narrative is appropriately abstract. But internal strategy must be operationally specific.
Narrative becomes problematic when it’s the entire strategic output. When the strategy document is exclusively narrative, the organization has produced strategic storytelling without strategic decision-making. The storytelling serves legitimate functions but can’t substitute for operational specificity.
The Gap Between Writing and Deciding
Strategy documents often confuse strategic writing with strategic deciding.
Strategic writing: Producing analysis of the environment. Articulating vision and aspirations. Describing desired capabilities. Explaining why change is necessary. This is valuable work. It creates clarity and alignment. But it’s preparatory to strategy, not strategy itself.
Strategic deciding: Choosing which capabilities to build and which to abandon. Allocating resources from deprioritized work to prioritized work. Specifying what stops and what starts. Assigning accountability for outcomes. Creating decision rules for resolving trade-offs. This is strategy.
Organizations often do the writing without deciding. The strategy document contains excellent analysis, clear articulation of challenges, and compelling vision. But the difficult decisions about resource allocation and trade-offs aren’t made. The document is strategic in subject but narrative in function.
The gap emerges because writing and deciding require different processes. Writing can be delegated to strategy teams or consultants. Deciding requires executive authority. Writing produces documents. Deciding produces resource reallocation, stopped projects, and unhappy stakeholders.
Organizations are better at producing documents than making decisions. The strategic planning process emphasizes document creation. The document gets reviewed, refined, and published. The decisions that would turn narrative into strategy often don’t happen. The process produces the document without the decisions.
The Performance Aspect
Strategy documents serve a performance function separate from their operational function.
Board performance. Management presents strategy to the board. The presentation demonstrates management is thoughtfully engaged with strategic challenges. The board is satisfied that management is “doing strategy.” Whether the strategy is narrative or operational isn’t evaluated. The performance function is fulfilled by document existence.
Investor performance. Public companies communicate strategic direction to investors. The strategic narrative reassures investors that management has a plan. Whether the plan is operationally specific isn’t material to the performance function. The narrative creates confidence regardless of execution likelihood.
Employee performance. Leadership presents strategy to employees. The presentation signals that leadership is thoughtfully considering the organization’s future. The employee audience receives reassurance that someone is thinking ahead. The narrative performs this function whether or not it’s operationally actionable.
Competitive performance. Organizations announce strategic initiatives to signal strength to competitors. “We’re investing heavily in AI” signals competitive intent. The announcement performs even if the operational reality is small experimental projects. The performance is the point.
The performance functions are real and valuable. Organizations need to reassure boards, investors, employees, and competitors. Strategic narrative performs these functions effectively. The problem occurs when organizations mistake performance for execution. The document that performs well for boards doesn’t necessarily enable execution.
The Consultant Role
Management consultants often produce narrative strategies. This isn’t because consultants are incompetent. It’s because the engagement structure creates a narrative.
Information asymmetry. Consultants have deep industry expertise but shallow organizational knowledge. They can analyze markets and competitors. They struggle to make specific resource allocation decisions without understanding internal politics, capability constraints, and stakeholder dynamics.
Engagement boundaries. Consulting engagements typically produce recommendations, not decisions. The consultant delivers strategic options and analysis. The client makes decisions. But clients often don’t make the decisions. The consultant’s recommendations become the strategy. The recommendations are narrative because they weren’t designed to be operational decisions.
Generalizability. Consultants reuse frameworks across clients. The frameworks are necessarily general because they must apply to diverse situations. “Build digital capabilities” applies to many organizations. The generality makes the recommendation narrative rather than specific to the client’s operational reality.
Time constraints. Strategy consulting engagements are time-boxed. Deep understanding of operational constraints takes time. The engagement timeline allows for analysis and recommendations but not the iterative work of turning recommendations into operational specificity. The output is sophisticated narrative.
Client preference. Some clients want narrative. They need justification for predetermined decisions, reassurance for boards, or appearance of strategic thinking. Consultants deliver what clients want. If the client doesn’t demand operational specificity, consultants don’t provide it.
Consulting-produced strategy is often high-quality narrative. The analysis is rigorous. The recommendations are reasonable. But the output is recommendations about what to do, not specifications of how to do it with actual resource reallocation. Converting recommendations to strategy requires additional work the engagement doesn’t include.
Employee Response to Narrative
Employees learn to recognize narrative strategy. Their response adapts:
Initial engagement. First exposure to narrative strategy, employees take it seriously. They attend strategy presentations. They read strategy documents. They try to align their work with strategic direction. They’re confused when strategic direction doesn’t translate to operational changes.
Growing skepticism. After several strategy cycles that produce narrative without operational change, employees become skeptical. They attend strategy presentations but don’t expect new information. They skim strategy documents knowing the content won’t affect their work. Skepticism becomes the default response.
Active dismissal. Experienced employees actively dismiss strategy documents. “Another strategy deck.” “Leadership is doing strategy theater again.” The dismissal is sometimes public, often private. The culture develops contempt for strategic planning.
Optimization for stability. Employees learn that strategy documents don’t predict actual changes. They ignore strategic narrative and optimize for local stability. They continue current work regardless of strategic direction. This is rational given strategy documents don’t correlate with operational changes.
Learned helplessness. Some employees want to execute strategy but can’t figure out what strategy requires. They ask for clarification and get narrative responses. They try to align their work and get contradictory signals. Eventually they stop trying. They wait for explicit direction that never comes.
The employee response compounds the problem. Even if leadership eventually produces operational strategy, employee cynicism prevents engagement. The organization has trained employees that strategy is performance, not execution. Rebuilding credibility requires consistent operational follow-through over multiple cycles.
The Measurement Problem
Narrative strategy is unmeasurable because it doesn’t specify falsifiable outcomes.
Aspiration vs. target. “Become a market leader” is an aspiration. It’s not a measurable target. What metrics define market leadership? What values constitute success? What timeline applies? Without specification, success is subjectively defined. Leadership can claim success regardless of outcomes.
Directional vs. magnitude. “Improve customer satisfaction” is directional. It doesn’t specify magnitude. Any improvement, however small, satisfies the direction. Actual targets specify magnitude: “Increase NPS from 32 to 45.” The magnitude enables evaluation of whether the strategy succeeded.
Activity vs. outcome. “Build AI capabilities” is an activity. It doesn’t specify the outcome those capabilities should produce. Organizations can build AI capabilities that don’t create value and claim strategic success. Outcome specification enables measuring whether capabilities produced intended results.
Input vs. result. “Invest in digital transformation” is an input. It doesn’t specify results the investment should produce. Organizations can invest significantly with poor results and claim they executed the strategy. Result specification enables evaluation of whether investments produced returns.
Narrative strategy fails measurement because it’s written to avoid falsifiability. Specificity creates accountability. Abstraction avoids it. Leadership prefers abstraction because it preserves future flexibility to claim success. But the flexibility prevents organizational learning. The organization can’t learn what works if success is subjectively defined.
The Cascade Problem
Narrative strategy creates problems when it cascades through organizational layers.
Executive layer. Leadership produces narrative strategy. From their perspective, the narrative is clear because they have context. They know what “customer-centric” means operationally even if it’s not written. The narrative is shorthand for decisions they’ve made mentally.
VP layer. VPs receive the narrative and must translate it to their functions. Without operational specificity, translation relies on interpretation. Each VP interprets based on their functional perspective. The interpretations diverge. Engineering interprets customer-centric as reliability. Product interprets it as user research. Sales interprets it as contract flexibility.
Director layer. Directors receive interpreted strategy from VPs. They further translate for their teams. Each translation adds interpretation. The narrative becomes more distorted and diverse at each layer. By the director layer, teams have incompatible understandings of strategic direction.
Individual contributor layer. ICs receive multiple-translated narratives. The message has diverged so far from origin that it’s operationally meaningless. ICs can’t figure out what to do differently. They continue current work or make local guesses about strategic intent.
The cascade problem occurs because narrative leaves interpretation space. At each layer, the interpreter fills the space with their own judgment. The cumulative effect is organizational incoherence. Top leadership thinks strategy is clear. Bottom layers receive contradictory signals.
Operational strategy resists cascade distortion because it’s specific. “Engineering increases from 100 to 120 headcount” doesn’t get distorted through layers. “Invest in engineering capabilities” becomes unrecognizable by the time it reaches engineers.
The Revision Cycle
Organizations that produce narrative strategy often revise frequently. The revision cycle is revealing.
Year one. The organization produces a strategy focused on “operational excellence.” The strategy is narrative. Nothing operationally changes. Year-end review shows limited progress.
Year two. The organization produces a new strategy focused on “innovation and growth.” The previous year’s strategy is quietly abandoned. The new strategy is also narrative. Nothing operationally changes. Year-end review shows limited progress.
Year three. The organization produces a new strategy focused on “digital transformation.” The previous years’ strategies are forgotten. The new strategy is narrative. The pattern repeats.
Frequent strategy revision reveals that strategies are narrative rather than operational. Actual strategy requires multi-year execution. Changing strategy annually means the previous strategy wasn’t operational. Narrative strategies are easily abandoned because they never created operational commitments. No work needs to be stopped because no new work was started.
The revision cycle itself becomes ritual. Leadership produces annual strategy documents. Employees learn the documents are annual theater. The organization develops antibodies to strategic change. When operational strategy is eventually needed, the organization can’t execute because the culture treats all strategy as temporary narrative.
What Operational Strategy Looks Like
Operational strategy has specific characteristics:
Resource reallocation specified. “Engineering headcount increases from 100 to 120. The 20 new hires join the platform team. Legacy maintenance team shrinks from 25 to 15 through attrition. The 10 freed engineers move to the platform team. Total platform capacity: 30 engineers.”
Work stopped and started. “Stopped: Custom integration requests from SMB customers. Manual reporting generation. Feature development for declining product line. Started: Self-service integration platform. Automated reporting infrastructure. Next-generation product development.”
Decision rights changed. “Product roadmap decisions require customer research validation. Previously decisions required only product manager judgment. Customer research team gains veto authority over feature prioritization. Product managers retain authority over implementation details.”
Metrics and targets defined. “Increase enterprise customer count from 45 to 75 within 18 months. Reduce customer acquisition cost from $25K to $18K. Increase customer lifetime value from $180K to $250K. Improve gross retention from 87% to 92%.”
Timeline specified. “Q1: Hire platform team. Q2: Build foundation infrastructure. Q3: Launch internal beta. Q4: Migrate first external customers. Year 2 Q1: Complete migration. Year 2 Q2: Retire legacy system.”
Accountability assigned. “VP Engineering owns platform delivery. VP Product owns customer migration. VP Sales owns enterprise customer acquisition. CEO reviews monthly. Board reviews quarterly.”
Decision rules provided. “When resources conflict, prioritize enterprise over SMB. When features conflict, prioritize reliability over novelty. When timelines conflict, extend the timeline rather than reduce scope.”
This specificity is uncomfortable. It creates commitments that can fail. It allocates resources that create losers. It assigns accountability that creates blame if outcomes aren’t achieved. The discomfort is why organizations prefer narrative. But the specificity is what enables execution.
The Leadership Choice
Organizations produce narrative strategy when leadership avoids difficult decisions. The avoidance is understandable. Strategic decisions are:
Politically costly. Reallocating resources creates unhappy stakeholders. Stopping work disappoints teams. Clear accountability exposes leadership to criticism if strategy fails. Maintaining ambiguity preserves political capital.
Uncertain. Strategic bets are uncertain. The right choice is unclear. Making specific commitments feels risky when outcomes are unpredictable. Narrative preserves flexibility to adapt when uncertainty resolves.
Effortful. Converting narrative to operational strategy requires coordination across functions, negotiation with stakeholders, and detailed planning. The effort is substantial. Narrative is easier to produce.
Uncomfortable. Operational strategy makes leadership accountable for specific outcomes. Failure is attributable. Success must be earned. Narrative allows claiming success regardless of outcomes. Comfort favors narrative.
But the costs of narrative exceed the costs of specificity. Organizations that avoid strategic decisions through narrative suffer:
- Execution confusion
- Resource misallocation
- Coordination failure
- Strategic drift
- Employee cynicism
- Wasted planning effort
- Accumulated strategic debt
The accumulated cost over years exceeds the one-time political cost of making specific strategic decisions. But the costs have different timing. The political cost is immediate. The narrative cost is distributed over time. Political incentives favor avoiding immediate costs by accepting distributed costs.
The Structural Reality
Strategy becomes narrative when organizations prioritize political comfort over operational specificity. The pattern is:
Leadership faces strategic choices. The choices require resource reallocation, stopped work, clear accountability, and uncertain commitments. These are difficult and politically costly. Leadership produces a narrative that appears strategic without creating operational commitments. The narrative performs functions: board reassurance, investor confidence, employee motivation. But it doesn’t enable execution.
Employees receive narrative strategy. They can’t translate it to operational changes. They continue their current work. Nothing changes. The organization cycles through strategy documents without strategic progress.
The pattern persists because:
- Narrative serves legitimate performance functions
- Operational specificity is politically costly
- The gap between narrative and strategy is rarely named
- Culture develops around treating strategy as performance
- External pressure is often insufficient to force change
Organizations that execute well produce operational strategy. They specify resource reallocation, stopped work, metrics, timelines, and accountability. The specificity creates political cost. But it enables execution. The execution creates organizational learning. The learning improves future strategic decisions.
Organizations that struggle produce narrative strategy. The narrative appears sophisticated. The analysis is rigorous. The vision is compelling. But the operational specificity is absent. Execution is impossible because the strategy doesn’t specify what to execute.
The choice is between:
- Political comfort with narrative that doesn’t enable execution
- Political discomfort with operational strategy that does enable execution
Most organizations choose comfort. They cycle through strategy documents, wonder why execution fails, and produce new narrative strategies hoping the next one works differently.
The alternative is recognizing when strategy is narrative. Demanding operational specificity. Making difficult resource allocation decisions. Accepting political costs of clear choices. Converting strategic thinking into strategic decisions.
Strategy isn’t determined by the sophistication of analysis or the eloquence of vision statements. Strategy is determined by operational specificity. Does it reallocate resources? Does it stop and start work? Does it create falsifiable commitments? Does it assign accountability?
When the answer is no, strategy is narrative. The narrative might be valuable for communication and motivation. But it can’t enable execution. Execution requires operational strategy. Organizations that understand the difference execute. Organizations that confuse them struggle.
The gap between strategic narrative and strategic execution is the gap between explaining why change is necessary and specifying what changes. Most organizations are good at the former and avoid the latter. The avoidance produces strategic underperformance that compounds over years. Closing the gap requires uncomfortable specificity. The discomfort is temporary. The execution capacity is permanent.