Some of the smartest people I know think that strategy is about gaining a competitive advantage over external competitors. In reality, it’s about gaining political capital — executive power, internal clout — to impose one’s agenda internally.
And it’s not really their fault. Strategy is often framed as a rational, objective process to defeat external competitors.
While authority is supposed to dictate strategy, in practice, organizations are political arenas, and strategy often becomes the tool ambitious people use to advance their own agendas, not the company’s.
Now, if strategy is mainly a tool for the powerful to stay in power, who’s actually solving the real-world competitive problems?