A strategy cookbook.

When we came to write a second book, we realised that it would be more fun to limit the words and work with a wonderful illustrator to fill in all the blank spaces on the pages. We ended up with a beautiful product that didn’t cause us months of turmoil and pain to create. It contains 25 lessons from our 25 years in strategy. No more, no less. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then you might want to get it. It’s available now from all the usual places. But we’re also keen to share as widely as possible, so here, for free, is all the text from the book, stripped of all that pesky distracting design. Enjoy.

1. Stay curious.  The world is your raw material. Everything around you can tell a story. If you’re constantly wondering how this got there or why they did that, you might be gathering material for your next strategy. If this way of thinking doesn’t come naturally, you might be in the wrong job.

2. Chance favours the prepared mind.  It’s never luck. It’s about how much raw material you already have in your head when you need it. If you haven’t done the work, you won’t get the flash of inspiration that seems to come from nowhere.

3. Get outside of your head.  Look at the problem from someone else’s perspective. Ditch your baggage and your personal point of view. This is much easier to say than do.

4. Create options.  A good strategy makes the world open up before you. Things that seemed tricky suddenly seem possible. Good strategy creates more options. Bad strategy reduces your options.

5. Be interesting.  If the strategy solution doesn’t interest you, if it doesn’t immediately spark ideas about what you could do if you walked that path, it’s not the one for you.

6. Use the data. Forget the data.  You need to know as much as you can. Drink it all in. Immerse yourself. Then create. Leap. Be lateral. For creative strategy data is the context not the content.

7. Do the math.  Creative strategy doesn’t mean making it up as you go along. To be creative, you need to know what you’re working with. Playing with the numbers can help with that.

8. Work out where you win.  You will have advantages. No matter how tricky the challenge seems. You will win somewhere. Start there.

9. Be realistic.  Creative strategy is about using what you have to get more. It’s not about magically becoming another organisation entirely. Start with your real limitations and resources.

10. The fruits are in the roots.  The secret to most brands’ success lies somewhere in their past. You just need to find it and make it relevant again.

11. Burn some boats.  When military commanders arrived in hostile territory, it was tempting to retreat. To give up. So they ordered their soldiers to burn the boats. When there’s no going back, you get more ingenious. Which boat should you burn?

12. Tell a story.  Strategy is a story. If it’s a good one, people remember it and act on it. If it’s a stodgy pile of charts and data, it sits on the shelf. Good stories change the world.

13. Be brave.  What is the most audacious path to follow? How can you be more ambitious? You and your brand are probably capable of far more than you have done so far.

14. Imagine you’re wrong.  I know, right? Hard to believe. We normally spend our time looking for confirmation. But if you hunt for contradiction, you grow faster.

15. Focus on what won’t change.  We have Jeff Bezos to thank for this. He was right. Whilst your competitors get distracted by the short term, focus on what endures. Then you win in the long term.

16. Say it out loud.  Conversation forces cognition. As you explain your plan, you create your plan. Ideally say it to someone who knows little of your organisation and challenges. Does it make sense to them?

17. Create hope & excitement.  Creative strategies are descriptions of a possible future. To motivate people to act, it helps if that future is bright, and the path to get there well defined.

18. Build your vocabulary.  More than anything else, words are your currency. Words are ideas. The more you know, the more ideas you have at your disposal. The right words change the world.

19. Use a diagram.  The say a picture tells a thousand words. A four box grid or a Venn diagram might well save a lot of words. Yes, it’s always an over-simplification. But so is a map. And maps often help you get to your destination faster and more directly.

20. Invite everyone in.  None of us are as good as all of us. And if you work in an organisation, things will move faster if everyone gets involved in making the strategy. Command and control is very old fashioned. And it doesn’t work.

21. Amuse yourself.  If it’s not fun, then you’re probably not doing it right. You’re the first audience for your ideas. If they don’t excite and amuse you, then...

22. There is no right answer.  That’s liberating, isn’t it? Creative strategy is about generating interesting options. It’s not an equation that can be solved. It’s a creative discipline, so many different answers can be the right ones. If you believe. If you commit.

23. Chase ideas not status.  It really shouldn’t be about proving you’re the smartest person in the room. Lose that impulse and chase down the best ideas instead.

24. The future can be made.  The future doesn’t exist. It is the sum total of all the decisions we make. Nothing is destined. Instead, it gets made by creative strategy.

25. Choose good partners.  An outside perspective is always useful. Teamed with your inside knowledge it can get you to new places. We can help with that.