A note to the reader

If you do not want to get challenged, this is not the newsletter for you.

I know. Believe you me, I know.

There are, clearly, far too many newsletters already. Far too many commentators making far too similar observations about far too comparable phenomena, doing little more than enforcing the comfortable status quo. It is, after all, understandable. Most of us find cognitive dissonance to be a pain in the proverbial posterior. Much nicer to, time and again, have one’s beliefs confirmed.

But lost in the non-existent fray is the unfortunate truth that it renders progress barely different from inertia. If we are not challenged - indeed, if we do not challenge ourselves - improvement becomes little more than a Harvard Business Review article about self-help.

And when it comes to strategy, it seems rather clear that we are not improving. In fact, if anything, we appear to be going backwards. Which I suppose might be fitting given that most of our understanding of what strategy is largely comes out of outdated bodies of knowledge, half-truths, and whole lies.

In this newsletter, rated by a rapidly growing number of practitioners as THE must-read weekly strategy digest, I attempt to go in the opposite direction.

This will include in-depth, honest conversations about:

• strategy in theory and practice,

• applied complexity theory,

• modern management discourse,

• markets,

• firms, and

• people.

It will also be written under the assumption that you are an intelligent human being, capable of thinking for yourself and comfortable enough in your skin that you welcome a challenge.

If you are not, Strategy in Praxis will not be the newsletter for you. But hey, at least there are many, many more to choose from.

A couple of morsels to whet your appetite

On Stephen Bungay’s strategic intent,

on Richard Rumelt’s guiding policy,

on Roger Martin’s Where to Play/How to Win,

on missioning and visioning, and

an archive to find more.

Regarding premium subscriptions

Starting September, 2024, about a quarter of what I put out (he wrote, trying desperately to avoid using the term ‘the content that I create’) will be free to read, share, comment upon, praise, or trash. The rest will be for premium subscribers only.

The reason why the split will shift towards a heavier focus on those who pay is simple: I devote a lot of time to everything that I write. It is only through producing the highest level of quality that I might realistically compete. And my time, to be blunt, comes at a price. I have children. They need to eat, or so they keep telling me.

Having said that, I am more than thankful for all subscribers - and I genuinely mean that. It is only through your continued support, spreading the word, sharing the work, liking and commenting, that Strategy in Praxis has grown from a weekly newsletter to a community in its own right.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Now, let us change the strategic paradigm together.

Onwards and ever upwards,
/JP