Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1253 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here.
Preamble
This post is based on an another very important INSEAD article, this one by Andrew Shipilov. Link at the end.
Strategy is the main playbook of almost all organizations. However, strategy formation, adoption, and execution vary greatly. This article sheds new light on the strategy. Very thought provoking read.
Your Strategy Is a Flashlight, Not a Business Plan
In boardrooms across the world, strategy is still treated as a document. It is written, refined, approved, and then, ironically, filed away. Organizations spend months crafting multi-year projections, detailed business plans, and structured roadmaps. And yet, many of these plans become obsolete almost as soon as they are completed.
Why? Because the world they were designed for no longer exists.
As INSEAD insightfully argues, “Strategy is not a business plan. It is a flashlight, a tool for navigating uncertainty”. This simple shift in thinking has profound implications for how leaders approach strategy, decision-making, and organizational agility.
The Death of the Static Plan
Traditional strategy assumes stability. It assumes that markets evolve gradually, competitors behave predictably, and assumptions remain valid. But today’s environment is different.
We operate in a world where technologies disrupt industries overnight, geopolitical shifts alter supply chains instantly, and customer expectations evolve continuously.
In such a world, a fixed plan is not just ineffective, it is dangerous. Because it creates a false sense of certainty. Organizations begin to execute against assumptions that are no longer true. And by the time they realize it, they are already behind.
Strategy as a Tool for Search
If strategy is not a plan, then what is it? According to the INSEAD perspective, strategy should be understood as a continuous search process. A flashlight does not tell you where to go in advance. It helps you see what is in front of you, identify opportunities, avoid obstacles, and adjust direction in real time. But this is what strategy must become.
Instead of asking what our five-year plan is, leaders must ask what we are learning, and how we are adapting.
From Prediction to Exploration
Traditional planning is built on prediction. It tries to answer what the future will look like, and how we should prepare for it. But prediction is increasingly unreliable.
The alternative is exploration. Exploration accepts that the future is uncertain, not all variables can be known, learning must happen continuously. This requires a mindset shift from certainty to curiosity, control to adaptation, and planning to experimentation.
The Strategy Loop: A Continuous Discipline
One of the most important insights from the article is that strategy is not a one-time exercise. It is a recurring discipline. Organizations must constantly ask, are we pursuing the right opportunities, do we have the capabilities required, and what gaps exist and how do we close them. This creates a strategy loop:
- Assess current position
- Identify opportunities
- Evaluate capability gaps
- Act (build, partner, or acquire)
- Reassess
And repeat. This loop replaces static planning with dynamic thinking.
Closing the Capability Gap
A key part of this process is recognizing what you don’t have. Every strategy involves gaps between current capabilities and required capabilities.
The INSEAD framework highlights three ways to close these gaps:
Build Internally: Develop capabilities within the organization. This is time-consuming, resource-intensive, but sustainable.
Partner Strategically: Leverage alliances to access capabilities quickly. This is often the most practical approach in fast-moving environments.
Acquire Externally: Buy capabilities through acquisitions is effective but often complex and costly.
The critical insight is this: Strategy is not just about choosing goals; it is about closing gaps intelligently and continuously.
The Role of Assumptions
Every strategy is built on assumptions. The problem is not that assumptions exist. The problem is that they are rarely revisited.
The INSEAD approach emphasizes regularly questioning assumptions, testing their validity, and preparing for scenarios where they are wrong.
This is where the flashlight metaphor becomes powerful. A flashlight helps you adjust when the path changes. A plan assumes the path will remain the same.
Decision-Making in an Uncertain World
In a static world, decision-making can be linear. In a dynamic world, it must be adaptive. This requires organizations to establish clear decision-making rules, regular review cycles, and structured reflection processes.
These are not bureaucratic controls. They are mechanisms for learning, adaptation, and realignment. Without them, strategy becomes reactive rather than proactive.
Why Many Organizations Fail
Despite understanding the need for agility, many organizations remain stuck in old models, because static planning feels safer. It provides a sense of control, a clear roadmap and defined accountability.
But this safety is an illusion. In reality, rigid plans reduce responsiveness, fixed strategies limit innovation, and overconfidence in assumptions leads to failure.
The challenge is not intellectual, it is psychological. Leaders must be comfortable with uncertainty, iteration, and imperfection.
Strategy and Leadership: A New Expectation
This shift in strategy demands a different kind of leadership. Leaders must shift from planning to exploring, controlling to enabling, and decision making to sense making. They must encourage experimentation, accept failure as learning, and create systems for continuous feedback.
This is not easy. It requires letting go of certainty, predictability, and traditional notions of control.
The Danger of Overplanning
One of the most common traps organizations fall into is overplanning. They create 100-page strategy documents, detailed forecasts, and complex models. But complexity does not equal clarity. In fact, it often obscures reality.
A flashlight is simple. It provides direction, visibility, and flexibility. Strategy should do the same.
From Documents to Dialogue
Another critical shift is moving from strategy as a document to strategy as a conversation. Strategy should be discussed regularly, challenged openly, and updated continuously.
This creates alignment, awareness, and adaptability. When strategy becomes a living dialogue, it remains relevant. When it becomes a static document, it becomes obsolete.
A Practical Example
Consider two organizations:
Organization A develops a 5-year plan, executes strictly against it, and reviews annually.
Organization B defines strategic direction, reviews assumptions quarterly, and adjusts based on learning.
Over time, organization A becomes rigid, while organization B becomes adaptive. And in a changing world, adaptability wins.
Sum Up
The metaphor of strategy as a flashlight is both simple and profound. It reminds us that the future cannot be fully predicted, that the path will not be linear, and that the environment will continue to change. In such a world, plans will fail, assumptions will break, and certainty will disappear. But with the right approach, organizations can adapt, leaders can respond, and opportunities can be discovered.
Strategy is not about having all the answers. It is about asking better questions, continuously.
It is about seeing clearly, moving intelligently, and adjusting quickly. Because in the end, a plan tells you where you thought you would go, a strategy, like a flashlight, helps you find where you actually should go.
Concluded.
Disclaimers: Pictures in these blogs are taken from free resources at Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, and Google. Credit is given where available. If a copyright claim is lodged, we shall remove the picture with appropriate regrets.
For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, any claim is lodged, it will be acknowledged and duly recognized immediately.
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