The five strategy archetypes

Strategy problems come in five recurring patterns: the Dreamers, the Machine Without a Map, the Analysts, the Gamblers and the Drifters. Each pattern has its own first move, and none of them is a strategy offsite.

The Dreamers have a clear strategy the budget has never met. The Machine Without a Map runs well in no stated direction. The Analysts have an excellent fact base and no decision. The Gamblers make bold choices on instinct. The Drifters have no strategy machinery at all.

A Stages of Excellence strategy check scores five areas:

• the strategy itself
• the facts underneath it
• the advantage it rests on
• the money and people behind it
• the way it is carried out and adjusted

The archetype is the shape across those five scores. It matters more than the average, because it says what to do first.

Why patterns, not scores

Two businesses can share an average score and need opposite things. One has a sharp strategy and no budget behind it. The other has a disciplined budget process funding a direction nobody has chosen. The average is the same. The first move is different in each.

The five patterns below come from the combinations we have seen most often across engagements. A business that fits none of them usually has one or two weak practices and no pattern. The check then leads with those practices instead.

The Dreamers

The strategy is clear and the budget has never met it. Scores are high on the strategy itself and low on money and people. The document names priorities, a board approved it, and the leaders can retell it.

The budget is last year's plus inflation. The priorities receive token funding once business as usual has taken its share. Nothing has been stopped to pay for them.

First move: skip the strategy refresh. Reopen resource allocation against the choices that already exist. Finish one real exit this year, so that money moves.

Observable example: A services group's board approves a strategy with two priority segments. The following year's budget allocates the same share to each business line as the year before. The two priorities have no named owner and no protected budget. The strategy is right and has not been paid for.

The Machine Without a Map

The operating rhythm is excellent and there is no stated direction for it to serve. Scores are high on execution and low on the strategy itself.

Monthly reviews run on time. Initiatives have owners and dates. Measures are reported. Everything that arrives gets delivered, whether or not anyone decided it should arrive.

First move: run one strategy cycle, in order. Write the diagnosis, develop real options, then make the choices. The machinery will then deliver whatever it is given, so give it a direction first.

Observable example: A distributor runs a tight monthly business review with thirty measures. Asked what the business is trying to become in five years, the executive team gives five answers. The review has been measuring progress toward nothing in particular.

The Analysts

The fact base is excellent and the decision never comes. Scores are high on facts and foresight, and low on choices and conviction.

Segment profitability is known. The market has been mapped. Scenarios exist. Every meeting ends with a request for more analysis, because a decision would upset someone.

First move: set a decision date and put real options on the table. Make the trade-offs the facts already point to, and accept that some analysis will never be finished.

Observable example: A manufacturer has three years of segment analysis showing one division destroys value. The analysis has been updated each year. The division is still there, and the latest paper recommends a further review.

The Gamblers

The choices are bold and committed, and they rest on instinct. Scores are high on choices and conviction, and low on facts and foresight. The business moves fast. Nobody has built the current-course projection, checked last year's plan against what happened, or written down what the bets assume. The approach works until the market disagrees.

First move: test the bets before doubling them. Build the momentum case, put three years of plans beside actual results, allocate costs properly, and write down the assumptions with a trigger for each.

Observable example: A founder-led business enters two new markets in eighteen months on the founder's read of demand. Neither entry had a stated assumption or a point at which it would be stopped. One succeeds. The other absorbs the profit of the first for two years before anyone calls it.

The Drifters

No strategy machinery exists to speak of. Scores are low across all five areas. The business goes where the market pushes it. Plans are budgets. Priorities are whatever the loudest customer or the last board meeting raised.

First move: one strategy cycle, foundations first. Write the diagnosis, work out where the business makes money, then make the choices. That takes weeks.

Observable example: A regional business has grown with its market for a decade and has never written a strategy. Its margin has fallen for three years. Nobody can say which products or customers caused it, because the question has never been asked.

How the pattern is assigned

The check scores each area from the answers, then tests the patterns in order. A pattern fires when one area is strong while another is weak in the combination above. The Drifters fire when every area is weak. Where no pattern fits, the report leads with the three weakest practices.

The pattern is a starting point for the conversation, and the practices underneath it carry the detail. The Stages of Excellence in strategy page lists all of them.

Frequently asked questions

Can a business fit more than one pattern? It can fit parts of several. The check reports the one that fits best. A business that fits three is usually a Drifter with one strong area.

Which pattern is most common? In our experience, the Dreamers. Writing a strategy is easier than moving money to it, and most planning processes stop at the document.

Is the Machine Without a Map a bad place to be? The pattern is a good place to start from. The hard part, running the business well, is already done. Adding a direction is weeks of work.

Do the patterns change over time? Often in a predictable order. Drifters who run a strategy cycle become Dreamers until the budget follows. Dreamers who reallocate become well balanced, or Gamblers if they stop checking facts.

How do I find mine? The strategy check takes ten minutes and names the pattern with its first move.

• Run the strategy check
• The Stages of Excellence in strategy
• Build a momentum case