Strategy Is a Team Sport
Having facilitated hundreds of strategy events, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. When a team of executives and board directors can do their best thinking together, to work as what I call the strategic mind of the enterprise, they achieve much more effective strategic breakthroughs, more achievable yet more ambitious strategies. They are more focused, more aligned, and there is more energy and commitment as they move into mobilisation.
The other pattern is those strategies driven by only a few individuals, or developed in siloes and brought together physically as one document, but not a coherent whole. This approach leads to what I call alignment theatre, where everyone is nodding but secretly no-one is committed. Mobilisation stalls and the whole strategy is questionable.
Myth of the Lone Strategic Genius
The myth of the lone strategic genius is killing enterprise strategy. Companies keep investing in individual brilliance, sending selected executives to elite programmes or deferring to the most articulate voice in the room, then wondering why strategies feel disconnected and fragmented.
Another problem occurs when organisations run strategy processes bereft of team thinking exercises, and enterprise strategy becomes more of a collection than a collective. Strategic plans read like a mixtape of miscellaneous greatest hits rather than an album written by a tight band. No coherence, no creative spark, no collective genius or vibe. Each executive writes their part, but nobody’s composing the whole.
The Domineering Voice Problem
Some strategy sessions are inadvertently controlled by a single voice, often an executive or director with strong opinions or extensive credentials who intimidates others, whether intentionally or not. This converts group strategy sessions into monologues, creating superficial alignment through acquiescence rather than genuine collaboration.
I once worked with a highly experienced executive who had built multiple successful businesses. In traditional settings, their voice would dominate through sheer authority. But when we structured the process to actively solicit diverse input, something remarkable happened. They relished the feedback from other executives, recognising that collective insight strengthened their own thinking in ways their individual expertise couldn’t achieve alone. In doing so, that executive also became a respected and valued thinking peer for the other executives, rather than an aloof expert.
The same transformation occurred when boards shifted from being strategy approvers to strategic thinking partners. Instead of rubber-stamping often consultant-crafted plans, directors became genuine contributors to strategic dialogue, bringing their diverse experience and governance perspective to enrich the conversation – adding to and sharpening the strategic thinking.
The Team Capability Imperative
Strategic mastery demands collective engagement because no individual, regardless of expertise, possesses the full spectrum of insights needed for robust enterprise strategy. Frontline observations, customer insights, technical constraints, and financial realities must be integrated through genuine dialogue, not merely pre-reading or fodder for long presentation sessions.
Beyond breadth of perspective lies the question of risk. When strategic capability resides in just one or two individuals, the organisation becomes vulnerable with every executive transition. Teams that author their strategies together create resilience through distributed capability, protecting the organisation from key person dependency and ensuring strategic continuity across leadership changes.
Perhaps most critically, teams that author strategies together move beyond alignment theatre to genuine commitment. This isn’t strategy by committee or consensus-driven mediocrity. It’s about creating structured environments where robust debate flourishes, where diverse perspectives enhance decision-making, and where psychological safety enables the challenging conversations that generate both breakthrough thinking and shared ownership.
| Building Strategic Team Capability Create Psychological Safety: • Explicitly value collective genius over individual brilliance • Normalise constructive tension as essential to strategic clarity • Encourage “strong views, lightly held” as a collaboration mindset Structure for Success: • Give equal speaking time and actively solicit input from quieter members • Slow the pace to enable deeper strategic thinking • Encourage leaders to challenge across functional boundaries and provide feedback “out of their lanes” Foster Democratic Engagement: • Value fresh perspectives from those without sophisticated strategic vocabularies • Embrace boards as strategic thinking partners, not just approvers • Work on real problems together rather than presenting individually generated solutions |
From Solo Performance to Strategic Mind
The most powerful strategies emerge when diverse perspectives unite around genuine challenges. Teams that learn strategy together don’t just create better plans, they develop the collective strategic muscle that survives transitions, adapts to change, and translates effectively into aligned action.
Strategy isn’t a collection of solo performances. It’s ensemble work that requires every voice to create something greater than any individual could achieve alone. When your leadership team becomes the strategic mind of the enterprise, you move beyond alignment theatre to genuine commitment, beyond disconnected plans to coherent breakthroughs, beyond individual brilliance to collective genius.
That’s when strategy becomes what it should always be: a team sport.
© 2025 Matt Walsh. All rights reserved.