Strategy Meets Reality Podcast What is Strategy For? | Mike Jones
Apr 7, 2026
Starts with why an honest read of reality must come before ambition. Highlights organisational disassociation and the harm of overstretch. Explores interpretation over noisy launches and the power of back-briefing. Reframes strategy as enabling viability and advantage, not theatre for boards or marketing. Argues constraints can become creative advantages.
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Orientation Beats Decision Making
- Mike Jones says orientation to reality must come before ambition because wrong orientation makes decisions irrelevant.
- He describes organisational disassociation where leaders overreach, creating cynicism and fracture between stated strategy and what happens on the ground.
Ground Ambition In Capabilities
- Do ground ambition in a clear read of current capabilities and constraints before setting horizons.
- He advises mapping what you're actually good at, the enabling constraints, then staging next-step experiments.
Enable Back Briefing Not Big Launches
- Do create space for interpretation rather than amplifying a one-way strategy launch.
- Mike recommends back-briefing: teams translate intent, state constraints and resource needs, then align through two-way bargaining.