Strategy: The Art of Problem Solving With Imagination

Aug 26, 2025

Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, dives deep into the art of strategy by reframing competitive problems. He emphasizes the rarity of ambidexterity in leaders, balancing exploration with exploitation. Reeves introduces his Strategy Palette, outlines principles of competitive advantage, and discusses how AI fits into evolving strategies. With engaging anecdotes, including insights from Lego's culture, he advocates for restoring play to spark creativity, urging firms to embrace collective imagination and innovative thinking.

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INSIGHT

Five Strategy Styles From A Palette

Competitive situations map to five strategy styles based on predictability, influenceability, and harshness.
Choose the classical, adaptive, visionary, shaping, or turnaround style based on those dimensions.

ADVICE

Turnaround Needs Growth And Fresh Leadership

Combine cost reduction with a credible growth component when doing a turnaround.
Replace or add leadership if the team that caused decline cannot enact the necessary change.

INSIGHT

Ambidexterity Is Rare But Solvable

Ambidexterity — exploring and exploiting — is extremely valuable but rare in leaders.
Solve it by hiring ambidextrous leaders, sequencing leaders, or building complementary teams.

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How can leaders develop winning strategy by solving competition-based problems?

In this episode, Rich sits down with Martin Reeves — chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, prolific business strategist, and co-author of books like The Imagination Machine, Your Strategy Needs a Strategy, and his recently published work, Like: The Button that Changed the World. Martin shares why great strategies often require reframing the real problem, how leaders can deploy collective imagination, and why strategic advantage is always a moving target.

He also explores the rare but essential trait of ambidexterity — being able to exploit what works while continuing to explore what’s next — and outlines why in today’s fast-changing world, strategy must evolve from a plan to a practice.

🔑 Key Quotes:

“I have a very pragmatic definition of strategy in that it's any systematic, so not just random, any systematic pattern of thought or action which biases the probability, not the certainty, biases the probability of favorable competitive outcomes.”

“Well, the basic idea is you've got to solve a competitive problem and therefore what problem you're solving depends upon the competitive situation.”

“We kept bumping into this idea of what the strategists call ambidexterity, which is the ability to explore and exploit, to do the growth thing as well as the efficiency thing is extremely valuable, but also quite rare.”

“As a 35-year veteran strategist, I can't remember a single assignment where the given problem, the assumed problem, was the actual problem. There was always the need to reframe.”

“We may think about the strategy of large corporations in terms of efficiency and deduction and analysis, but actually now with the pace of change, also every company needs, even at scale, to be entrepreneurial and therefore it needs to deploy collective imagination.”

“So essentially, competitive advantage involves doing difficult and valuable things, which you can do, which create value for customers, but which are hard for others to imitate.”

🧠 Practice Makes Profit:

Rich reflects on how to avoid chasing the shiny objects in your business and start assessing opportunities objectively.

🎯 League of Strategic Minds:

How can leaders prepare their teams for a productive strategy off-site meeting?

🏆 Winsight:

Former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s perspective on effective time management and how you can apply it to your work.

⏱ Time Stamps:

(00:00) Deep Dive Interview with Martin Reeves

(52:46) Practice Makes Profit

(55:13) League of Strategic Minds

(57:10) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage

🔗 Links: