It is the silent crisis of the modern enterprise. It is not a crisis of ambition; most C-suites we encounter are teeming with bold visions and aggressive growth targets. It is not a crisis of talent; your organizations are likely staffed with capable, intelligent professionals. It is a crisis of coherence . Walk into the boardroom, and the strategy seems clear: a polished deck, a unified "Winning Aspiration," and a set of financial targets that point up and to the right. But

It is a Monday morning. You arrive at the office—or perhaps you log on from your home study—with a clear intention. Today is the day you will finally map out the market entry strategy for the new product line. It is the day you will draft the organizational restructuring plan to address the operations bottleneck. It is the day you will focus on the future . Then, the phone rings. A key client is threatening to churn because of a shipping error. An email pops up: your VP of Sa

Ask most small and mid-sized business (SMB) leaders whether they have a strategy, and they will confidently say yes. Then they pull out a spreadsheet full of initiatives, a Gantt chart of projects, or a slide deck listing priorities by quarter. What they really have is a plan. Useful? Yes. A strategy? No. This confusion is more than a semantic quibble. When you treat a plan as if it were a strategy, you guide your company with the wrong instrument. It feels like you are being