Key practices for a good strategist

The strategy experience can be quite broad, and when you look at how many memes have been published in the last months on Tiktok around "what a consultant actually does", which usually concludes after a few interviews with people in the market that they have no idea, one point I've been making in the past couple of years and we truly believe here at Bolt is being confirmed, Strategy cannot be only about the talk.

That's why I've ranked here 3 of the most important aspects to be take into consideration for any professional working in strategy.

1. In-depth recommendations rather than high-level common playbooks

I've seen many professional that seemed quite smart and speak with fancy elaborate words and business jargons, where if you try to challenge them to get down into the roots of their arguments, you'll see there is not much underlying them.

That's why every time I'm interviewing someone from my team, I'm always trying to assess who can provide more than high-level suggestions or business strategies - usually people in more senior levels will know that cutting costs (or optimizing) is good, that strategic partnerships are a way to leverage growth, that investing more in marketing or campaigns will boost growth and so on.

People don't need standard strategy playbooks comprising 5-10 recommended strategies for any industry/company when they're hiring a consultant or an internal strategies. They want rather 1-2 strategies that will actually move the needle that are adjusted and contextualized to their market, macroeconomics, competitive landscape and potential consumer behavior. Yes, it does takes more time to prepare and pitch those, but their likelihood of being successful are higher as well as the appreciation on whoever is gonna receive them.

2. Smart ideas are nice, but business cases are better

What I want to know rather when I'm assessing an idea is how much this is gonna impact, how much this is gonna cost, and most importantly, why should we move on with this strategy rather than others - in which criteria are we benchmarking this with a pool of other potential suggestions. What makes us believe that this is the right way moving forward?

When you scope down your proposals from 5-10 high-level ones to actually 1-2 business cases, it allows you to free time to actually put the numbers together and be able to objectively assess each one of them. In the end the data-layer foundation is far more important than how bright or smart any idea might sound. I'd always prefer to go towards a common simple idea with a higher ROI than a life-changing one that you cannot provide solid figures to back it up.

3. Strategy doesn't matter without proper execution

I personally always loved to read researches and papers on strategic recommendations for the company, that people have paid large sums to tier-1 consultancy companies to build. What I've never loved though is the fact that multiple times they end-up being quoted a lot, but actually do not lead to actionable meaningful changes in the company's directions or strategy. Or rather in a second case, they end up becoming a company's high-level strategy, but this one is so misaligned from its operations that it ends up being a fancy cute doc lost in a folder in Google drive (the new version of locked in a drawer).

For strategy to be successful, properly mechanisms have to be implemented to ensure that all the company's efforts are aligned and backing-up this direction. People have to be aware of this strategy and it has to be embedded in their workflow and their performance review. Setting up a proper solid governance system to ensure execution is the other side of the coin of a strategy system, one without the other can exist (and I've seen it many times), but it will definitely prevent you or slow you down towards your long-term vision.