How to Avoid Strategy-by-Cliché

I remember standing in front of an executive team I was facilitating a strategy offsite for. They'd just assured me that their biggest strengths were their strong brand and their talented people.

My heart sank.

Not because I doubted their brand or their talent. But because those statements were strategically unhelpful.

Now, they were expecting me to use what they'd said to help them come up with a strategy.

I made up my mind never to let myself find myself in that situation again.

After some reflection, I boiled it down to two problems:

1. How to ask skillful questions

2. What counts as a strategic insight

Ask Skillful Questions

If you ask simplistic questions, you get simplistic answers.

"What are our strengths?" sounds like a reasonable question. But it's too broad, too open-ended, and encourages generic answers.

Instead, ask questions that demand deeper thinking and force the group to surface what truly differentiates them:

• "How do you deliver value to your customers in a way your competitors struggle to replicate?"

• "What do your most loyal customers say you do best—and why do they say that?"

• "Where have you consistently outperformed your competitors, and how have you achieved that?"

And once you get an answer to those, dig deeper:

1. What's your reason for saying that? How do you know that? Push for evidence, whether anecdotal, qualitative or quantitative?
2. How does that play out? What is the impact on your business, your customers, distributors, supplies, or other stakeholders?

These kinds of questions don't yield quick answers. They invite reflection and dialogue. They create the conditions for uncovering strategic gold.

Define What Counts as a Strategic Insight

A strategic insight isn't just a label.

"Brand" and "Talent" are categories. They're not insights in themselves. To be strategically useful, an insight must be:

• Observable: something you can see and experience in the real world.

• Impactful: something that has had, is having, or could have a measurable impact on your business.

• Specific: ideally, backed by evidence or at least compelling anecdotes.

Instead of "strong brand," try:

• "In the last three RFPs, clients have told us we won because they recognised and trusted our brand from our thought leadership articles."

Instead of "talented people," try:

• "Our customer satisfaction scores spiked 15% last quarter, coinciding with our rollout of the new customer support training program."

Bringing It All Together

In strategy work, the quality of your thinking is often defined by the quality of your questions.

As a consultant or facilitator, your job is to shape the conversation—to steer it away from platitudes and towards insights that genuinely inform strategic decision-making.

Don't settle for the first answers. Dig. Probe. Ask for stories. Ask for proof.

And build the habit of distinguishing between labels and insights.

It's one of the best ways to help your clients (or your own team) build strategies grounded in reality, not just rhetoric.

Ready for Better?

If you're looking to develop repeatable processes for facilitating better strategic conversations, StratNavApp.com can help.

It provides a structured, collaborative environment to capture, organise, and develop strategic insights—turning conversations into action.

Ready to move beyond buzzwords?

Try StratNavApp.com for free: https://www.stratnavapp.com/

Or book a free call to discuss your needs: https://calendly.com/chriscfox/discuss-your-needs