Strategy doesn’t live in a binder; it lives in motion. We sit down with practitioner-author Erik Schön to reconnect strategy with doing, drawing on Sun Tzu’s correlative pairs, Boyd’s OODA orientation, and Wardley Maps to turn abstract plans into concrete manoeuvres. From the first minutes, we challenge the ritual of annual decks and fixed KPIs, arguing for shorter strategy loops that privilege learning, outcomes, and a clear line of sight to the customer.

Erik unpacks the engine behind durable advantage: the dance of expected and surprise. Customers must get the table stakes they anticipate, but loyalty and growth emerge when you add a well-timed, positive surprise. Think iPhone’s shock, or Ericsson’s practice of shipping at least one “desire to use” feature per release. We translate this into practical moves: mapping capabilities, exposing gaps, and deciding when to build, buy, or outsource. Wardley Maps become the team’s shared terrain, shifting debates from personalities to dependencies and evolution—from novel to commodity.

We also tackle culture and cadence. Quarterly retrospectives and prospectives beat annual ceremonies because they compress feedback, curb KPI tunnel vision, and empower small experiments with fast ROI. Drawing on mission command, we favour firm intent with flexible plans: leaders set outcomes, teams design manoeuvres. Along the way, we explore why some firms stall on “expected, expected, expected,” how to avoid self-induced ambiguity, and what Eastern comfort with change can teach Western efficiency cultures. Real-world examples—from Netflix’s global-local bet to Nvidia’s pivot from gaming to AI—show how capability compounding and orientation shifts tilt markets.

The close is a call to shape the conditions before you need a burning platform. Make the terrain visible, invest time in improvement work, and reward independent thinking within shared intent. If this conversation helps you see strategy as a daily practice—mapping, choosing, experimenting—tap follow, share with a colleague who loves real strategy, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Find Erik's work here:
blog post: https://medium.com/an-idea/the-art-of-strategy-ac4165c0c085
Book site: https://yokosopress.jimdofree.com/#ArtOfStrategy

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if the most powerful strategy lessons aren’t found in boardrooms but in everyday life at the edge of uncertainty? We sit down with Sarah Kernion, founder of Inch Stones and mother of two non-speaking autistic children, to explore how frontline parenting becomes a masterclass in orientation, sense making, and adaptive leadership. The conversation is candid, challenging, and grounded: you can’t outdecide a misaligned orientation, and quick decisions that endure are the by-product of clarity, not adrenaline.

We dig into why “inch stones” beat grand milestones when growth isn’t linear and why accommodations, far from signalling weakness, often expose the exact places a system can get stronger. Sarah shares practical examples, like visual scheduling that helped her children and unexpectedly improved routine for a neurotypical sibling—proof that inclusive design scales value. Together we dissect John Boyd’s OODA, clearing up the myth that it’s about speed. Orientation is not what you see; it’s how you make sense of what you see. Leaders who build cultures of sense making ask better questions, retire dead KPIs, and trade control for clarity—because comfort is optional, but learning is non-negotiable.

There’s also a provocative look at neurodiversity as an operational edge. Different brains notice different signals, and in dynamic environments that diversity of noticing can become decisive advantage. We talk echo chambers, identity, and how tactical humility keeps orientation tethered to reality. Expect crisp takeaways: replace fear with strategy, define outcomes before metrics, and anchor decisions in environment, intent, and constraints. When you do, speed emerges naturally, teams act with confidence, and progress compounds—one inch stone at a time.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague who protects green dashboards, and leave a review with the one assumption you’ll destroy and replace next.

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy only matters if it changes what people do tomorrow. We bring Stephen Bungay, author of The Art of Action, to unpack how mission command turns intent into execution without drowning teams in detail. Instead of orders that prescribe how to act, directives clarify what to achieve and why it matters—freeing people to adapt their methods as conditions shift.

We trace the roots from Prussian Auftragstaktik to modern NATO doctrine, then translate the core ideas into the boardroom. Stephen lays out a practical framework: share the real context, state higher intent and your own intent, surface implied tasks, and set clear boundaries. The heartbeat is the backbrief: teams explain how they’ll deliver the outcome, leaders confirm alignment, and everyone moves faster with fewer escalations. Along the way, we tackle the persistence of Taylorism, why lists and slide decks masquerade as strategy, and how over‑control smothers initiative while under‑guidance invites chaos.

If you lead teams in uncertain markets, this conversation gives you tools to create high alignment and high autonomy at the same time. You’ll hear battle‑tested examples, from SOPs that help without handcuffing, to writing intent that drives real trade‑offs, to building situational awareness so people can decide well under pressure. Start small: give problems, not solutions; ask for a backbrief; reward judgement over compliance. Subscribe for more conversations on strategy that survives contact with reality, and leave a review to share where you’ll test mission command first.

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Modern work is overflowing with nonsense. Mandatory e-learning that teaches nothing, policies no one reads, collaboration that never happens, and metrics that drive the wrong behaviour.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by James Healy, applied behavioural scientist and author of BS at Work, to unpack why organisations get pulled into performative nonsense and how behavioural science helps us escape it.

James talks about the realities of human nature, why environment shapes behaviour, and why organisations keep adding more policies, processes and tech instead of removing what gets in the way. From the illusion of collaboration to the seduction of simple solutions, this is a grounded, funny and painfully accurate look at how modern work goes wrong and what to do instead.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why so much of modern work is BS
• The behavioural science behind human nature at work
• Why mandatory e-learning never changes behaviour
• The paradox of human behaviour and herd dynamics
• How metrics distort decisions and create perverse incentives
• Collaboration myths and why people do not collaborate
• Why organisations always add and never subtract
• Technology overload and the infinite workday
• Principles over policies
• Outcomes over activities
• The do less principle and why subtraction matters
• Challenging organisational norms and asking why

🎧 Keywords: Behavioural Science, BS at Work, Human Behaviour, Collaboration, Metrics, Organisational Culture, Decision Making, Leadership, Performance, Simplicity, Strategy Execution

📘 James’s Book: https://amzn.eu/d/a1XHcvV

📬 Connect with James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-healy-behaviour-boutique/

📬 Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones

🌐 Full Episodes: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategy-meets-reality

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most organisations overthink strategy and underdo it.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones sits down with Alex Smith, author of No Bullsh**t Strategy, to explore why strategy has drifted into a thinking exercise instead of a doing discipline.

Alex explains why the fundamentals of strategy are simple, why leaders obsess over the wrong things, and why the real work starts when you make a move your competitors cannot or will not copy. From diagnosing industry flaws to the value of sacrifice and contrarian thinking, this is a grounded conversation that cuts through jargon and brings strategy back to action.

🔍 In this episode:

• Only as better than best: why out-competing rarely works
• Sacrifice as the engine of real innovation
• Strategy as a doing discipline
• The macro vs micro problem in organisations
• Why language corrupts strategic thinking
• Why customer obsession kills good strategy
• Diagnosing industry problems, not customer problems
• Simple execution that people can actually act on

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, No Bulls**t Strategy, Competitive Advantage, Industry Diagnosis, Strategic Simplicity, Execution, Action, Contrarian Strategy, Leadership, Decision Making

📘 Alex’s Work: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-m-h-smith/

📬 Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones

🌐 Full episodes: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategy-meets-reality

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Julian Chender—organisational design expert, strategy advisor, and founder of 11A Collaborative—to explore how to make strategy work in the messy reality of organisational life.

Julian draws on years of experience helping purpose-driven organisations redesign themselves to stay viable. They unpack the challenges of structure, capabilities, and leadership transitions—revealing how real constraints can actually sharpen strategic execution when handled with clarity and care.

From trust and convergence to feedback loops and freedom within constraints, this is a practical conversation for leaders navigating change, collaboration, and complexity.

🔍 In this episode:

• What organisational design really means—and why it’s strategic
• Adapting capabilities when strategy shifts
• Freedom within constraints: the paradox of effective delivery
• Building trust, feedback, and convergence into your operating model
• How organisational structure shapes—and enables—impact

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, Organisational Design, Operating Models, Structure, Capabilities, Leadership, Execution, Collaboration, Purpose-Driven, Julian Chender

📘 Learn more about Julian’s work: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianchender

🌐 11A Collaborative: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11a-collaborative/

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if the future of health isn’t just about fixing sickness—but creating value in how we live?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Andy Wilkins—founder of Future of Health, futures strategist, and author—to rethink what strategy means in health and care systems.

They explore why efficiency often works against long-term health outcomes, how integrated care and lived experience must shape policy, and why the next generation of strategy must learn faster than the systems it’s trying to change. This is a forward-looking, systems-based conversation on rethinking health, leadership, and public value.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why healthcare strategy must move beyond efficiency
• From treating sickness to building resilience
• Using lived experience and Three Horizons thinking
• Rethinking leadership and the role of AI
• Designing health systems that adapt and learn

🎧 Keywords: Healthcare Strategy, Value in Health, Futures Thinking, Systems Change, Integrated Care, Three Horizons, Public Sector Leadership, AI in Health, Resilience, Andy Wilkins

📘 Learn more about Andy’s work: https://www.vision4health.co.uk/

📬 Connect with Andy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andywilkins/

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy isn’t a performance—it’s a practice.

In this special solo episode, host Mike Jones reflects on what 30 episodes of Strategy Meets Reality have revealed about the state of modern strategy. He explores why strategy fails first in perception, not execution, and how organisations confuse alignment with coherence, performance with action, and control with orientation.

Drawing on lessons from Boyd, Sun Tzu, and the 30+ guests who’ve shaped this journey, Mike challenges the branding-led view of strategy and calls for a return to strategy as movement—anchored in perceptual clarity, structural capability, and a shared sense of reality.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why strategy fails in the boardroom, not the field
• The perceptual complexity behind strategic failure
• How structural inertia widens the decision-to-action gap
• Why coherence beats alignment in turbulent environments
• The role of freedom of action in resilient execution
• How we lost the art of manoeuvre—and how to bring it back

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Learn more: https://substack.com/@strategymeetsreality https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, Execution, Leadership, Coherence, Perception, Structure, OODA Loop, Viability, Emergence, Strategic Orientation, Adaptive Organisations, Boyd, Sun Tzu, Viable System Model

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/