Many companies don’t really have a strategy. They have a mission and a vision, and they run a yearly catalogue of projects and activities. Most often, the missing piece is clear choices about where and why the company will win, and how it will solve the related challenges.
Those choices should be expressed as strategic ambitions that set direction and anchor the planning of initiatives. Without that, the enterprise turns into a corporate Wild West. Each function hitches up its own coach, pulls in its own direction, and prospects for its own gold.
Let’s explore these strategic pitfalls through the lens of classic Western films – where, like in business, choices determine survival. We’ll outline what strategy is not, and what CEOs and leadership teams should keep in mind when shaping the real strategy.
Once Upon a Time in the West Not a strategy: a stirring narrative. What to heed: stories must rest on testable assumptions, falsifiable hypotheses, and specific commitments; otherwise they are campfire tales without a trail map.
No Country for Old Men Not a strategy: nostalgia for yesterday’s playbook. What to heed: advantage decays; refresh your edge against new unit economics, customer hidden needs, and advanced technologies like AI, or you’ll be outgunned on tomorrow’s terrain.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Not a strategy: a lone hero or single “killer feature.” What to heed: systems win – align resources, products/services, go-to-market, operations, and capital allocation so the parts reinforce each other and create compound advantage.
A Fistful of Dollars Not a strategy: chasing short-term revenue. What to heed: design for durable advantage and repeatable cash flows; quick wins matter only if they compound into a moat that deepens over time.
For a Few Dollars More Not a strategy: adding budget or headcount. What to heed: strategy is the courage to choose where to play and what to ignore; fund the sharp edge and starve the merely good.
High Noon Not a strategy: last-minute heroics. What to heed: the duel is won in positioning long before the clock strikes – through focus, sequencing, and preemptive moves that shape the battlefield.
The Magnificent Seven Not a strategy: collecting seven shiny initiatives. What to heed: coherence beats collection; select a few moves that lock together into a flywheel where each turn strengthens the next.
True Grit Not a strategy: raw perseverance. What to heed: grit without focus burns capital faster; pair tenacity with explicit trade-offs and stop rules that preserve resources for what matters.
Stagecoach Not a strategy: moving faster on the same road. What to heed: sometimes you need a different road – or a different vehicle; revisit the arena, not just speed of execution.
The Wild Bunch Not a strategy: autonomous teams roaming without a North Star. What to heed: empower teams, but set a clear North Star, guardrails, and an operating cadence that keeps autonomy coherent.
A Shadow Rider Not a strategy: following in the leader’s tracks. What to heed: create your own trail by understanding what makes you irreplaceable; learn from others’ success but build your unique value that resonates with your chosen stakeholders.
Unforgiven Not a strategy: pretending errors won’t happen. What to heed: build a learning loop – assumptions, tests, and reallocation – so mistakes pay tuition instead of compounding loss.
The Searchers Not a strategy: endless hunting for “the next big thing.” What to heed: resist the shiny object syndrome; commit to a thesis, compound into it, and prune distractions; exploration needs an exploitation core.
3:10 to Yuma Not a strategy: merely meeting deadlines. What to heed: timing is choosing the right train – markets, segments, and entry windows where your edge actually matters and compounds.
The Quick and the Dead Not a strategy: speed at all costs. What to heed: pursue speed with fit; the wrong bet executed quickly still loses, while the right bet compounds even at moderate pace.
Dances with Wolves Not a strategy: partnering with everyone. What to heed: partnerships need clear value exchange, not just good intentions; say no where it dilutes your edge or hands leverage to rivals.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Not a strategy: a list of positives that ignores constraints. What to heed: confront the ugly – capacity limits, switching costs, regulatory friction – and design your advantage around them.
Yet business strategy, unlike the Old West, isn’t about claiming territory through conquest. Instead of the frontier’s win-or-die mentality, true strategy creates spaces where stakeholders find lasting value and choose to stay. We build irreplaceable value that makes competition irrelevant.
From Western chaos to real strategy: a CEO’s quick checklist
To close, here are seven “magnificent” rules to ride toward victory, with no need to shoot at the competition:
- Inspiration: “What unique and lasting impression do we want to create so that stakeholders (customers, employees, partners, society) recognize us as irreplaceable, thereby ensuring our long-term success.”
- Strategic Position: “Where and for whom we want to become the most recognized and valued choice – which challenges we will solve in a unique way.”
- Unique Recognition Logic: “How and with what to become irreplaceable in the eyes of those where we want to leave the strongest impression.”
- Value Promise: “What specific value and benefits we’ll deliver to customers and other key stakeholders, so they recognize our irreplaceability.”
- Core Strategic Ambitions: “Which 3-5 interconnected ambitions will make us irreplaceable – each resonating deeply with our stakeholders. And what must we sacrifice to maintain true focus?”
- Strategic Resource Dedication: “Where we’ll invest capital, talent, and time to build our irreplaceability – through gradual yet consistent changes that will endure.”
- Ecosystem Responsibility: “How our strategy will strengthen the business, social, and natural ecosystem – recognizing that sustainable success comes from symbiosis, not competition.”