Your Change Strategy Isn’t Strategy

A strategy that doesn’t move people is mostly decorative. Alex M H Smith helps cut through the fog. • Strategy isn’t a goal, a plan, or a tidy list of improvements — it’s a specific choice that tells people what to do next. • Internal change teams need their own version of “unique value” — a clear answer to how this change serves and accelerates the business. • In a world of change fatigue, the most interesting move may not be adding more — it may be sacrificing something everyone assumes is essential. Alex M H Smith is the author of No Bullsh*t Strategy, which is one of my favourite short, sharp books on what strategy actually is. He comes at change management a little sideways — which is exactly why this conversation is useful. We talk about why so much “strategy” is really just a goal wearing a better jacket, why leaders need to sell change internally with as much care as they sell externally to customers, and why people probably don’t care about your change initiative as much as you hope they do. Alex also makes the case for specificity, mischief, charisma, and sacrifice. If your organization is exhausted by transformation, perhaps the next question isn’t “What should we add?” but “What are we brave enough to stop?” 🎯 What You’ll Learn • Why goals and optimization often get mistaken for strategy • How to define the unique value of an internal change team or initiative • Why change leaders need to create an “internal advertising campaign” • How specificity helps people understand what to do next • Why subtraction, sacrifice, and mischief may cut through change fatigue 💡 About Alex M H Smith Alex M H Smith is a strategist, advisor, speaker, and author of No Bullsh*t Strategy. Through his work at BasicArts and his newsletter The Rare Mind, he helps leaders and businesses think more clearly, differentiate more sharply, and build strategic narratives that people actually care about. 👉 Resources & Links • Change Signal newsletter: https://thechangesignal.com/newsletter • More Change Signal episodes: https://thechangesignal.com/podcast • Alex M H Smith / BasicArts: https://basicarts.org/ • The Rare Mind newsletter: https://alexmhsmith.substack.com/ 🏷️ Tags #ChangeManagement #ChangeLeadership #TransformationLeadership #BusinessStrategy #OrganizationalChange #StrategyExecution #Leadership