The Delusion

So you can out-execute competitors. Congratulations. Here's what you're missing.

There was a COO I used to work with who had a favorite saying. It sounded great upon first hearing, but it never sat right with me. Like a sugary piece of cake that tastes great on the way down but gives you a stomachache later. “We punch above our weight!” he’d proclaim. I must have heard that every week.

I understood why he loved it. We were a small tech company, competing against large, well-funded competitors. It was the sort of rallying cry that made you feel like you had a fighting chance, imbuing a “David vs Goliath” spirit within the team. Who could argue against that?

Well, I’m going to. And that’s what makes this difficult to write. Maybe even difficult for you to read.

The COO’s favorite saying may have sounded pithy. But it was a delusion. It was a delusion because it only captured half the picture of why businesses win and lose. To tell you about the other half, I’m going to rely on Hamilton Helmer, the genius behind the 7 Powers framework. To Helmer, winning requires two ingredients: strategy + operational excellence. To paraphrase his definitions:

• Strategy: the game plan for gaining a meaningful, durable advantage over competitors.

• Operational excellence: your ability to execute with speed, precision, and quality.

Helmer is clear on this: you need both.

And this is why that plucky quote from my COO haunts me. It only looked at half the picture. And that same myopic view is how I’ve come to see too many businesses operate. They fixate on tactics, failing to understand or even notice the other half of the equation. No better example of this comes from the rabid response to the dreaded LinkedIn Swipe File. You’ve seen them. The author will pick a big, heavy-hitting brand, then break down every aspect of their marketing funnel, website design, copywriting system, or brand identity.

There’s a promise that’s implied: follow these tactics, and you’ll find success, too.

It’s not that there isn’t anything to be learned from these deconstructions. The problem is when interesting examples of tactical success get conflated with sure-fire recipes for business outcomes.

OpenAI, Adobe, Netflix, Nvidia, and SpaceX all possess operational excellence. So do thousands of other businesses you will never hear about. And you never will because that’s all they have. Without a good strategy, the best execution of sales, marketing, and product will bear little fruit. Why do tactics enjoy such elevated status? Maybe it’s because tactics are tangible, while strategy can feel fuzzy. Perhaps it's because you can get an immediate dopamine hit from deploying tactics, while strategy can take months or years to bear fruit. Maybe it’s because strategy can’t be replicated the way tactics can. A topic for another day.

The delusion of “tactics-as-sufficient” is enticing one. It promises that if we’re just a bit more clever in our marketing, if we can just unlock a new sales trick, or vibe code faster than competitors, we’ll come out ahead. It’s enticing because it says that success can be reduced to a recipe, a “paint-by-numbers” approach. It promises that we, too, can “punch above our weight” and put competitors in their place. But it’s a lie.

At least it is, without the other half of the equation.

Good strategy is something many businesses claim to have, but few actually do. So I’ll leave you with a quick acid test to see if strategy is really part of your team’s DNA or something just given lip service. Here’s what I’ve seen from being inside the businesses that have it:

• Executives don’t shy away from threats. They seek them out.

• There’s an appetite for understanding, not knowledge.

• There are no sacred cows.

• The culture is comfortable being uncomfortable.

• Complacency is unwelcome.

• No one in leadership is too busy to think about the future.

And most of all, a team with strategy has this odd combination of confidence and humility. Confidence that they can win, but the humility that comes from knowing that answers don’t come from being smart, but from wrestling with ambiguity.

Remember, a business that doesn’t invest in strategy will soon cede its territory to one that does. Which is yours?

---

As the founder of Flag & Frontier, John Rougeux partners with executive teams to align on their strategic narrative, build belief in the market, and win the next chapter of their business. You can chat with John here or connect with him on LinkedIn.