Is strategy discovered or decided?

When CEOs think about strategy, they usually think about decisions.

What direction should we take?
What should we build next?
What should we prioritize?

It sounds straightforward.

👉 Strategy is something you decide.

But in practice, that’s where things start to break down.

Because most of the time, forcing decisions too early leads to:

• Wasted resources

• Misaligned teams

• Slow or stalled results

And from the outside, it looks like a strategy problem.

But it’s not.

👉 It’s a sequencing problem.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see CEOs make—especially when they’re trying to grow or stabilize an organization.

They try to decide strategy…

When they should be focusing on discovering  it.

The answer is:

👉 It’s both.

But not at the same time.

And not in equal measure.

There are two very different types of strategic work happening in any organization:

1. Strategy as Improvement (Discovered)

This is where you:

• Find known problems

• Improve existing systems

• Optimize what’s already working

This kind of strategy is more linear.

You discover the issue → you identify a solution → you implement it.

2. Strategy as Growth (Decided)

This is where things get more complex.

You’re trying to figure out:

• What to build next

• Where to expand

• What direction will actually work

And here’s the key:

👉 You don’t fully know the answer yet.

So you just decide to try a new direction and after you can discover if it worked.

Because it feels faster.

Cleaner.

More in control.

When things feel uncertain, the instinct is:

👉 “Let’s just pick something and go.”

But this creates a hidden risk:

👉 You start investing heavily in something that hasn’t proven itself yet.

And that’s where:

• Burnout comes from

• Teams lose confidence

• Money gets burned

• Momentum stalls

Not because the idea was bad.

But because too many resources were invested in trying something new and untested.

Discovering strategy doesn’t mean waiting around.

It’s not passive.

It’s active observation.

It looks like:

• Listening to your team

• Watching what’s already gaining traction

• Paying attention to patterns

• Testing small ideas

• Noticing where energy is building

• Identifying issues

You’re asking:

👉 “What is already starting to work?” or “What’s not working”

Not:

👉 “What should we force into existence?”

This is a subtle shift—but it changes everything.

When you build strategy this way:

• It takes less effort

• It requires fewer resources

• It gains traction faster

• It creates alignment more easily

Because you’re not pushing uphill.

You’re working with something that already has movement.

👉 It is always easier to ride momentum than to create it from scratch.

When CEOs decide strategy too early, they unknowingly create:

1. Resource Drain

New initiatives require:

• Time

• Money

• Focus

And when they’re not grounded in reality, they consume all three without return.

2. Team Confusion

When direction is forced:

• Priorities shift frequently

• Work gets restarted

• People lose clarity

This creates friction—not because people are bad, but because the system is unclear.

3. Burnout

This is the big one.

Because when strategy isn’t working, the default response is:

👉 “Try harder.”

Instead of:

👉 “This might be too early.”

This is where strategy becomes practical.

Instead of trying to “get strategy right,” shift your role to:

👉 Identifying what’s already emerging and shaping it or take what’s not working and make changes so it starts working. 

In early stages, you can afford to guess.

As a CEO of a growing organization:

👉 You can’t.

Because now:

• Decisions impact more people

• Investments are larger

• Mistakes are more expensive

This is where many CEOs feel stuck.

They think they need better ideas.

But what they really need is:

👉 Better sequencing.

Your job is not to have all the answers.

Your job is to:

• Create space to see clearly

• Listen deeply

• Identify patterns

• Guide direction

And most importantly:

👉 Know when to wait and when to decide