A good strategy goes bump in the night...

Anyone who has spent more than three minutes with me will know that I’m a huge horror fan.

From an ever-increasing and ever-macabre blu-ray collection, to the horror movie posters and trinkets on display throughout my house, it’s hardly a secret. Hell, even my soap dispensers are in the shape of a skull!

But, while horror can be entertaining it can also teach us a fair bit about strategy.

Yang and Zhang wrote a fantastic article titled The Psychology Behind Why We Love (or Hate) Horror where they detailed why we, as people, love the horror genre.

One of the reasons is how horror stimulates us, both positively (e.g. excitement or joy) and negatively (e.g. fear or anxiety). Interestingly, the most fearful moments may also be the most exciting or enjoyable. It’s why we want a horror movie to have that jump-behind-your-seat or hide-under-your-covers moment. That’s when horror is at its best.

... And the same can also be said for strategy.

Good strategy is at its best when it puts you on edge.

One of the world’s greatest strategic minds - Roger Martin - argues that strategy is all about making choices and these choices should come with an element of fear and discomfort.?

After all, making a choice is inherently scary as it means placing a bet. And, with all bets, some might pay off and others might not.

However, it's easy to fall into the trap of wanting to run away from that - necessary - fear.

It's why the need to make strategic choices often gets replaced with the comfort blanket of 100-slide decks, convoluted graphs and vague words... all of which say a lot and sound impressive, but leaves the room wondering what's actually been decided on.

And the worst thing we can do in strategy.

It's the equivalent of saying “let’s split up” or "I'll be right back" in a slasher movie. It never ends well.

“If you are entirely comfortable with your strategic plan, there’s a strong chance it isn’t very good” (Roger Martin, The Big Lie of Strategic Planning)

The failure to make a choice and feel a little on edge means you haven’t got a strategy at all. Instead, you’ve got a lot of slides and charts that give the illusion of something but actually provide zilch. And zilch is the real horror, as while making strategic choices come with the chance of failure, the absence of any strategic choices come with the certainty of failure.

So to anyone responsible for any level of strategic thinking, force yourself to treat strategy like a horror movie. Ensure there are moments where it makes you feel uncomfortable and fearful; and embrace those feelings. That’s how it’s meant to make you feel and is exactly what you should be searching for because, just like a horror movie, if your strategy doesn’t have that fear factor, it’ll be a box-office bomb.

If this topic interests you, check out the articles below that inspired this piece!

1. Martin, R.L. (2014). The Big Lie of Strategic Planning. [Online]. Harvard Business Review. Last Updated: January-February. Available at: https://hbr.org/2014/01/the-big-lie-of-strategic-planning [Accessed 9 June 2024]
2. Yang, H., Zhang, K. (2021). The Psychology Behind Why We Love (or Hate) Horror. [Online]. Harvard Business Review. Last Updated: 26 October. Available at: https://hbr.org/2021/10/the-psychology-behind-why-we-love-or-hate-horror [Accessed 9 June 2024]