Recurring challenges in organisational strategy

It’s unclear
It’s not reasonable
It’s not credible
It’s not believable
It’s not customer-centric (ref. “photocopier test”)
It’s rigid and brittle

Essentially the strategic narrative is weak and will not rally the organisation and focus efforts on delivering value.

An effective strategy should be:

Clear
Coherent
Begin with your current state
Empower people
Be customer centric

When strategies meet these criteria they enable everyone in the organisation to understand what the most valuable thing they could be doing is and in a way which quickly generates feedback about the effectiveness.