The 33 Best Quotes on Strategy - Curated by Dr. Marvilano M
- Dr. Marvilano
- Jul 11
- 5 min read
I’ve always loved a good strategy quote—they inspire and challenge me. Out of the thousands out there, I’ve picked a few of my favorites to share with you. I’ve also added a brief explanation of what each quote means and why it matters. Hope you enjoy them!
1. Importance of Strategy
Denis Watley: “The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, and what they plan to do along the way.”
Without clear, believable goals and a plan to achieve them, success is unlikely. Strategy begins with clarity of goal and commitment to the goal.
Sun Tzu: “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
Short-term actions are ineffective without an overarching strategy. Strategy provides coherence and purpose.
Leon Trotsky: “You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.”
Even if you ignore strategy, it will affect you. You must proactively engage with it, or be shaped by others’ strategies.
2. Importance of Focus and Being Different in Strategy
Michael Porter: “Strategy 101 is all about choices – you can't be all things to all people.”
Strategy is about making choices and focusing; trying to please everyone leads to mediocrity.
Michael Porter: “Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different.”
You must consciously choose to be different; strategy is differentiation, not imitation. Personally, I think being different is the key to winning.
Anonymous: “You can have anything you want – you just can’t have everything you want.”
Focus is essential; unlimited desires require selective prioritization.
3. Importance of Not Straying Out of the Strategy
Michael Porter: “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
Knowing what not to pursue is as important as knowing what to pursue. Strategy requires discipline.
Peter Drucker: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
Efficiency is pointless if you're doing the wrong things; alignment to the strategy comes first.
Volker Voige: “Initiative prioritization doesn’t mean distributing all available resources to all known projects.”
Strategy demands prioritization, not equal effort across everything. Focus resources where they matter.
4. Importance of Simplicity of Strategy
Albert Einstein: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
Simplicity in strategy is a sign of deep understanding; complexity often hides confusion. I truly believe this: Strategy must be simple!
Leonardo Da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Sophistication lies in simplicity; a streamlined strategy is more powerful than a convoluted one. Winning strategy is always simple.
Hans Hoffmann: “Simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
Clarity comes from removing the non-essential. Strategy should highlight what truly matters.
5. Importance of External Looking in Strategy
Michel LeBoeuf: “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”
Customer satisfaction isn’t just a goal, it is the strategy. Success follows value creation. Strategy needs to look at the customers always!
Thomas Rimings Holme: “After a business implements a strategy, competitors will react, and the firm’s strategy will need to adapt to meet the new challenges.”
Strategy must be dynamic. Competitors respond, and your approach must evolve accordingly. Strategy needs to look at the competitors always!
Max McKeown: “All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.”
The ability to adapt is central to strategic success. Rigidity leads to failure. Strategy needs to look at the changes always!
6. Importance of Forward Looking in Strategy
Miyamoto Musashi: “In strategy, it is important to see distant things as if they are close.”
Good strategy involves anticipating the future and planning for long-term outcomes.
Peter Drucker: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Don’t wait for the future – shape it through strategic action.
Jeff Bezos: What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you... you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn't a strategy.”
Strategy is about leaning into change, not resisting it. Adapt and act rather than complain.
7. Importance of Consistency Between Strategy and Actions
Henry Mintzberg: “Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions.”
Strategy isn’t just what’s written down, it’s what you consistently do. Most people make the mistake of decoupling strategy from execution. But this is completely wrong! Your strategy should be what you execute!
Morris Chang: “Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.”
Strategy and execution must go hand in hand. One without the other is ineffective.
Ram Charam: “Strategy execution is a specific set of behaviors.”
Execution is behavior-driven. Strategy manifests through consistent actions. It's not what you say you will do, it's what you actually do.
8. Importance of Communication and Alignment in Delivering Strategy
Jim Collins: “Building a visionary company requires 1% vision and 99% alignment.”
Vision is only a small part. Real success requires everyone being aligned to that vision.
Chuck Martin: “The result of bad communication is a disconnection between strategy and execution.”
Miscommunication creates a gap between plans and actual outcomes.
Marvilano Mochtar: “Just like the nervous system translates the brain’s commands into actions by the body, communication system translate strategy into execution.”
Communication systems are essential to translating strategy into coordinated action. You cannot implement a winning strategy with a poor communication system in your company. And, no, a single townhall is insufficient!
9. Importance of Execution
Sam Bodley Scott: “Strategy execution is the responsibility that makes or breaks executives.”
Executing strategy well is the key responsibility of leaders; it defines their success. Good CEOs are the ones who can execute their strategies.
Peter Drucker: “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
A plan is worthless without action. Strategy only matters when followed by hard work.
10. Importance of Creating Conducive Organisation to Deliver Strategy
Peter Senge: “We tend to think... people are producing results because management wants results. But... people produce results because they want the results.”
People must be intrinsically motivated for strategy to succeed; results come from
within.
Peter Senge: “If people are really enjoying... they will innovate, take risks, and trust one another.”
A culture of enjoyment, trust, and risk-taking fuels innovation and strategic success.
11. Importance of Staying with the Strategy Long Enough
Robert Half: “Persistence is what makes the impossible possible, the possible likely, and the likely definite.”
Persistence turns aspirations into achievements. Strategy needs time and consistency.
Ovid: “Nothing is stronger than habit.”
Habits shape outcomes. Long-term success depends on forming strategic routines. Strategy must shape a new culture/habit that can deliver the strategy.
12. Importance of the Feedback Loop to Refine the Strategy
Winston Churchill: “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
No matter how elegant a plan seems, results must be monitored to validate it. Beautifully said by Churchill!
Jack Welch: “An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
The ability to learn and adapt quickly from experience is a major competitive advantage. Especially true in this chaotic time and turbulent world.
Vince Lombardi: “Hope is not a strategy.”
Wishing for success isn’t enough. Strategy requires real, deliberate adjustment to your strategy.
If you're into strategy, check out my book The Gospel of Strategy.
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