Strategic Fluency - Frameworks or Stories?

Stop me if you've been in Bob's position. Every strategist learns the frameworks: Porter's Five Forces, Blue Ocean Strategy, and SWOT analysis. And we assume great strategy comes from great frameworks. So Howard Schultz, of Starbucks fame, he knew all of the frameworks, but he didn't transform Starbucks with any of them. In 1983, Schultz visited Milan. He walked into an espresso bar. He saw the ritual, the community. The third place between home and work, and that experience became a story. That story became his North Star. That story created a $100 billion+ company. Not a framework, a story. But here's where most strategists get stuck. Baba spent hours preparing for the strategy retreat. He had the perfect framework from his MBA, and he was excited because he was going to nail it by explaining this framework. As the conversation progressed, some Some doubts crept in, but he prepared for hours, so when the moment came, he jumped in. And as he explained his framework, eyes glazed over. So he tried to speed up. That made it worse. Phones came out. People started to read them. His boss gave him a dark look that was kind of like a "cut it out," and Bob gave up. But moments later, another colleague jumped in. And in that case, she told a story. And Bob suddenly realized she was explaining the same concept that he just tried to describe using a framework. But this time, the heads were nodding. There were some new insights that were emerging as people built on her initial story. There was some buy-in happening. She was accomplishing the result. And he thought to himself, "Why didn't I try that?" Well, here's what he discovered. And what Howard Schultz knew all along, that we've been taught that strategic thinking is about mastering frameworks. They give us the illusion of sophistication. But here's the truth that plays out in every boardroom and every strategy retreat and every presentation given by consultants: that there's a big difference between strategic thinking and strategic fluency. Strategic thinking is all about those frameworks that you learned in MBA school, ones I mentioned before. Strategic fluency teaches you stories. So when JFK committed America to go to the moon, he didn't pull out the Gantt chart. He didn't tell a framework. Instead, he went to the future and told a story about the future. So the best strategists actually aren't searching for which framework applies in which situation. Instead, they're reaching out for their curated collection of signature stories. So how do you avoid that awkward moment Bob found himself in? I recommend that you prepare 3 signature stories. One transformational story, like the one about Schultz in Milan. One about the future, like Kennedy's moonshot. And one story about strategic choice. That's 3 stories. Good news is Abstract Cinema helps you to find your 3.