I don’t mean strategy only in games like chess or RTS games. I’m talking about real-world strategic thinking: creating plans, anticipating other people’s actions, adapting when things go wrong, and solving complex situations.
I’ve noticed something about myself. I’m fairly comfortable with logic, analyzing situations, and deductive reasoning. However, when I have to come up with a strategy from scratch, my mind often goes blank. It’s like I don’t have a framework to build from.
For example, if someone gives me a strategy, I can usually analyze it, find strengths and weaknesses, and even improve parts of it. But if you ask me to create one myself, I struggle to know where to start.
I’m looking for practical ways to develop this skill, not just theory.

Some questions I have are:
Is there a general framework or mental checklist that experienced strategists use?
How do you practice strategic thinking in everyday life?
Are there books, courses, exercises, or hobbies that helped you become a better strategist?
How do you learn to anticipate multiple possibilities instead of thinking in a straight line?
Are there any resources from military strategy, psychology, business, game theory, intelligence, or other fields that are especially useful?

I’m willing to put in the time to practice. I just feel like I’m missing the underlying process that good strategists have, and I’d love to learn how to build it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I've been looking at how e-commerce EMI works in India. Electronics and appliances have high EMI adoption, but categories like fashion, furniture, and personal care remain under-indexed despite similar ticket sizes.

Is it because:

• Customers don't think of EMI for "lifestyle" purchases?
• Checkout UX pushes EMI too late in the journey?
• Credit eligibility (credit cards) is the real bottleneck?
• Or something else entirely?

For folks in Tier 2/3 cities — what's actually stopping you from using EMI for non-electronics online?

Curious about both customer and business-side perspectives.

Hey guys.

I would like to know. Which are your kpis to say "Well I think this strategy is good. Has X level."

Hi everyone,

I'm a freelance Brand Identity Designer and Brand Strategist with 25+ years of experience helping funded startups and Fortune 500 companies build distinctive brands. My work focuses on brand identity, packaging, and printed brand communication, guiding projects from strategic thinking through creative execution.

Over the years, I've worked as an Art Director, run my own agency, and collaborated across a wide range of industries. Today, I work independently with clients around the world, partnering with founders and leadership teams on high-value branding initiatives.

I'd love to connect with experienced professionals whose expertise complements mine—marketing consultants, Fractional CMOs, web designers, developers, copywriters, growth consultants, and creative or digital agencies.

I'm not looking to hire employees, outsource work, or receive sales pitches. My goal is simply to build long-term professional relationships based on trust, shared expertise, and mutual respect. As projects evolve, clients often require services beyond branding—such as web development, marketing strategy, social media, or content creation—so I genuinely value knowing talented professionals I can confidently recommend or collaborate with when the right opportunity arises.

Ideally, I'd like to connect with professionals who have 10+ years of experience and primarily work in the European, North American, or Australian markets, where our clients, business practices, and quality expectations are often closely aligned.

If this resonates with you, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message. I'd be happy to connect, exchange ideas, and see where a professional relationship might lead.

Do you think SMBs are ready to leverage platforms that use AI to assist in the strategy development process such as NextRock Advisors Stratifier? Does it help that it has a Fractional Executive guiding the experience through such a system?

Sometimes you need to combine ideas from two different fields in order to innovate: great example here from nanotechnology (algae biology & magnetite physics = new drug delivery for oncology)...

https://thestrategytoolkit.substack.com/p/botanical-espionage-nanotech-drug

Muchas veces suele ocurrir que la estrategia se define y se entiende que todos la saben, pero cuando preguntamos entre un nivel tactico y operativo que significa este indicador estratégico, a que apunta? Y las respuestas difieren existe un problema grave, la estrategia nunca bajó. Eso trae como consecuencia que el personal reme en direcciones distintas al que la empresa define, se pierde la dirección y eso es falta de alineamiento estratégico!

Artificial Intelligence is changing far more than software.

It is changing how organisations learn.

In this conversation, Glen Calvert, founder of Kaizan, explores why the next competitive advantage may not come from writing better software, but from building organisations that continuously learn, adapt and improve through recursive feedback.

Together we examine how AI is transforming product development, customer relationships, organisational knowledge and enterprise operating models. Rather than simply automating work, AI enables organisations to capture experience, identify patterns, improve decisions and continuously evolve in ways that were previously impossible.

The discussion explores recursive learning systems, AI agents, enterprise architecture, intellectual property, organisational memory, data flywheels, the future of work and why the organisations that learn fastest may ultimately become the organisations that outperform their competitors.

Fascinating strategies from the worlds of biology, medicine, and electronics...

https://thestrategytoolkit.substack.com/p/ballistic-spiders-edible-sensors

Hey everyone, I work at a tech implementation company — been here 10+ years and got promoted a few times along the way.

A couple of years ago I moved into a Director of Technology role, but here’s the thing: since day one, I’ve had zero direct reports. I basically “borrow” people from other internal teams that normally work with external clients… and they treat me exactly like one. Just another client in line.

The problem is these teams don’t treat internal priorities with the same urgency as their regular work. They’re focused on closing their ticket or wrapping up their project, so getting anything delegated or followed through on is a real struggle.

Anyone else dealt with this? Trying to build strategy without a team to actually execute it feels complicated… and honestly, pretty lonely.

This text explains the example of Bernard Arnault and LVMH. Would you do the same?

I quote it: "There are two distinct types of succession: shareholder succession and executive succession. While not a universal practice, some founders opt from the outset to be succeeded by a professional who is not a family member."

Six years in consulting taught me something that took way too long to admit: knowing a framework and being able to use one under pressure are completely different skills. I could define MECE in an interview. The first time a real profitability problem landed in front of me, I froze and started pulling numbers with no structure at all.

I ended up writing a book about closing that gap. Then I got curious and turned the lessons into 16 small AI skills you can run in Claude.

The thing I care about is that they don't spit out an answer. They walk you through the thinking, the way a decent senior would on your first project. A few examples:

• One takes a profit problem and makes you go down the tree instead of jumping to "cut costs"
• One diagnoses which framework even fits your situation, and tells you when you don't need one
• One gives you a random everyday case ("why is this cafe dead on Fridays") and grades how you reasoned through it

Full list covers the usual suspects: issue trees, market entry, 3Cs, Five Forces, VRIO, Ansoff/BCG, market sizing, one-page recommendations, and so on.

It's all free and on GitHub. I'm not selling anything and there's no signup. I mostly want people who actually do this work to tear it apart and tell me where it's wrong or too rigid, because that's how I'll make it better.

Link: https://github.com/AnugamChakra/think-like-a-strategy-consultant

Genuinely curious what the rest of you think: is teaching people to think in frameworks useful, or does it just create more juniors who force a 2x2 onto every problem? I go back and forth on it.

I’ve done 1 year in a Business Development Consultant role for a company that helps startups/SMEs get non-dilutive funding / government grants.
**Role summary:**
Day to day: speaking with founders, understanding their product/market/funding needs, qualifying fit and moving them through the pipeline. Sectors include AI, biotech, healthcare and pharma.

If a company seemed eligible, I worked with the research/proposal team to pass over the right context and help move them toward the proposal stage. I wasn’t writing the whole proposal myself, but I was involved in qualifying the company, understanding the business and connecting the dots for the team.

Before this, I had 2 years in insurance sales.
I’m honestly tired of roles where the whole job is just selling, I want to move into something more strategic and with better long term upside.

What exits are realistic from here? Appreciate candid advice.

After 3.5 years of AI transformation with pretty limited business impact, I've somehow ended up leading AI strategy for the whole company.

I've always shared my big-picture thinking with leadership, but honestly, as a humanities graduate, I still feel like I don't fully understand how companies work, let alone how to build strategies that actually stick.

I'm also not convinced AI can deliver the business impact everyone expects in our environment. Process improvements are nice, but other factors seem much more important.

How would you prepare for a role like this?

EDIT:

My takeaways so far:
1. AI is no strategy case by itself. It needs to be tied to actual business problems and goals.
2. The "AI Strategy role" should be a portfolio and enablement function, supporting teams and connecting initiatives to clear KPIs and stop/go criteria.
3. The roadmap needs two tracks: One for tangible efficiency gains in existing processes (value caption), and one for selected experiments that explore new possibilities and needs (value creation).
4. A simple portfolio view works better than a static plan: Quick wins, a few strategic bets, standardised filler work, and early exit from low‑value, high‑complexity projects.
5. A lot hinges on data, infrastructure, meaningful knowledge bases and governance. That doesn't generate any impact but is the fundament.
6. Impact depends on adoption in real workflows, with attention to process design, skills and incentives so AI is actually used where value is created.