Common mistakes in strategy building
- Michael MacArthur Bosack
- May 26
- 5 min read
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (second from left) hosts a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai (right foreground) on 14 June 2004 (photo via the U.S. Department of Defense)
A well-crafted strategy is an indispensable component for success in negotiation, crisis management, peacebuilding, or just about any other practical endeavor. It is what provides a clear view of one’s desired end state and the roadmap for how to get there. Without a strategy, efforts often become piecemeal and haphazard. With one, even the most significant setbacks can become manageable.
As important as strategies are, there are many common mistakes that practitioners make when building them. In some cases, the mistakes come from a lack of understanding of how to craft strategies. In others, there are institutional issues or obstacles that degrade the effectiveness of strategy development and implementation. Whatever the case, if gone unchecked, these mistakes can cause strategies to unravel quickly.
To avoid these mistakes, it is important first to review the fundamental building blocks for a strategy. They are are follows:
Ends. These are the objectives that you are seeking to achieve.
Ways. This covers how you will achieve your ends.
Means. These are the tools at your disposal for carrying out your ways in order to achieve your ends.
Facts and assumptions. Your strategy must be grounded in reality, and that reality is defined by certain facts (things that are known to be true), and assumptions (things that are presumed to be true).
Constraints. These are things you must do based on policy or legal parameters.
Restraints. These are things you cannot do based on policy or legal parameters.
With these building blocks in mind, what then are the most common mistakes?
(1) What has been produced is not actually a strategy.
In many cases, a document that gets published may be called a “strategy,” but it is actually more of a policy paper or an individual action plan. These documents will contain some of the building blocks of a strategy but will leave out critical elements. For example, the document may call for expanding alliances and partnerships without adequately explaining why (to what ends) or what tools they will use to achieve that effect. In another example, the document may call for a certain policy objective without identifying how it can be achieved.
Make sure your strategy contains all the essential building blocks.
(2) The strategy is too complicated.
Being thorough is good, but a strategy means nothing if the implementers cannot make sense of it. This can happen if a strategy document becomes too long, if the author tries to account for too much in the strategy, or if it becomes inundated with academic theories and concepts. When that happens, a strategy document becomes unusable to most, and any positive effects rely upon the select few who know and understand it.
It is essential to make your strategy clear, understandable, and memorable.
(3) The strategy is too prescriptive.
Strategies should avoid checklists or specific milestones. They must save room for the implementers to operate flexibly because conditions will invariably evolve over time.
The goal for strategy implementation is to achieve your desired ends, not to tick action items off a list.
(4) The strategy is based on bad facts or assumptions.
Why do smart people make dumb decisions? Often, they are making rational choices based on bad information. The same concept applies to strategy development and implementation, where the ways and means may be predicated upon false facts or poorly formed assumptions.
Make sure the facts and assumptions underpinning your strategy are as accurate and well-founded as possible.
(5) The strategy has poorly defined constraints and restraints.
Strategy implementers must understand the left and right limits for their actions. Otherwise, some people will do nothing out of fear of overstepping, while others will go too far because they do not know where the line is. This can create an unhelpful mix of inaction and uncoordinated behaviors that either degrade strategy implementation or disrupt it altogether.
Ensure that your strategy clearly lays out what must be done and what cannot be done.
President Gerald Ford presides over a National Security Council meeting to discuss the situation in Vietnam, 28 April 1975 (photo via the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
(6) Failure to account for the other players.
Some strategies get too focused on one or two players, forgetting that there are others who can affect actions and outcomes. Reality is far more complex, and other parties can quickly derail strategy implementation if there is no anticipation of their actions or influence. There are different facts, assumptions, constraints, and restraints for each major player involved in a strategy, and these must be taken into account.
Always consider the other players.
(7) The strategy undervalues or omits tools for implementation.
Sometimes the people developing a strategy will not know or understand all the tools available to them. This typically happens when the strategy builders lack practical experience or fail to engage all the relevant stakeholders when developing the strategy. Undervaluing or omitting tools for strategy implementation creates missed opportunities and ultimately undermines your efforts to achieve your desired ends.
Study the practical tools available and engage all stakeholders so you can incorporate all available means in your strategy and employ them as effectively as possible.
(8) The strategy is never published.
Anybody who has experience as a practitioner knows that more strategy documents are left in draft form than actually published (either internally or externally). This often occurs because there are significantly more veto players (people who can say “no”) in any strategy development process, and many will block a strategy from moving forward to implementation because it is imperfect from their individual perspective.
It is difficult to implement something that is not finished. Craft the best possible strategy understanding that it will never be perfect, then publish it.
(9) The strategy is not accessible to those involved in implementing it.
People cannot execute a strategy they do not know about. Regardless of this fundamental truth, strategy documents are sometimes held at higher levels of classification with restricted access based on perceived “need-to-know.” Security is important, but so is achieving one’s objectives, and failure to communicate the elements of the strategy to those responsible for implementing it leads to poor execution and conflicting efforts.
Make your strategy as accessible as possible to relevant stakeholders.
(10) The strategy does not get updated.
Conditions are always changing--sometimes rapidly so. A strategy that has no mechanism for update will lose efficacy over time simply because it has not evolved to match the present circumstances.
Employ routine touch points based on scope: the smaller the strategy, the shorter the intervals between updates.
Crafting an effective strategy is not simply a matter of producing a polished document; rather, it is about building a practical, coherent framework that connects objectives with actions while remaining grounded in reality. A good strategy clarifies the ends, ways, means, and limitations of action, while also remaining flexible enough to adapt to shifting conditions. The mistakes described above are all-too-common in the practical world, and they have real, detrimental impacts on outcomes.
When building strategies, being conscious of these mistakes is the first step to avoid making them. Make sure your strategy has all the essential elements. Engage the relevant stakeholders throughout the development and implementation process. Review the strategy regularly to ensure that it evolves to match the present circumstances. If you can do these things, you can maximize opportunities for achieving your desired ends.
Michael MacArthur Bosack is a seasoned international negotiator and the founder of the Parley Policy Initiative. He is the Special Adviser for Government Relations at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. Michael is a former East-West Center Fellow, a military veteran, and the author of “Negotiate: A Primer for Practitioners.”
