MamaWritesSpells

Because “circle back” is not a plan.

Let’s start in the middle — because that’s where most strategy conversations already are.

You’re in a meeting. Someone says, “This is a strategic priority.”
Everyone nods. Someone types it into a doc.
No one asks what that actually means, because no one wants to be that person.

Here’s the quiet problem:
Most strategy talk sounds impressive while explaining absolutely nothing.

It’s full of phrases like leverage synergies, optimize alignment, and move upmarket — which all sound useful until you try to answer a very basic question:

Okay… so what are we actually doing differently?

Real strategy is boring in a very specific way.
It’s not vision statements.
It’s not vibes.
It’s not a 40-slide deck that needs narration to make sense.

Strategy is choices.

Uncomfortable ones.
Constraining ones.
The kind that force you to say no to perfectly good ideas because they don’t fit the direction you’ve chosen.

In plain language, strategy answers a few stubborn questions:

What are we trying to accomplish?
Who is this for — specifically?
What are we not doing anymore because of that choice?
And how will we know if this is working?

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Everything else is decoration.

When strategy gets wrapped in buzzwords, it usually means one of two things is happening:

1. The thinking isn’t finished yet.
2. People are trying to avoid accountability.

Because clear strategy is legible.
It can be repeated by someone who wasn’t in the room.
It shows up in day-to-day decisions, not just quarterly planning sessions.

If your strategy can’t survive a plain-spoken explanation — if it collapses without its special vocabulary — it’s probably not strategy. It’s aspiration.

And look, aspiration is fine. Necessary, even.
But confusing it with strategy is how teams end up busy, misaligned, and quietly frustrated.

Good strategy sounds almost too simple when you hear it.
It lands with a small oh.
It clarifies tradeoffs instead of pretending they don’t exist.

It doesn’t need to impress anyone.
It needs to guide action.

So if you want to know whether something is actually strategic, try this test:

Can you explain it without slides, acronyms, or throat-clearing phrases?

If not, don’t add more language.
Strip it down.

Strategy doesn’t get stronger when it gets fancier.
It gets stronger when people know what to do on Monday morning because of it.

Anything else is just noise.
(And most teams already have plenty of that.)