A strategy presentation is given at the board meeting. The slides are ready, the numbers are in place. But everyone in the room is hesitant to ask the same question: “Can we really implement this strategy?” Some think to themselves, “This strategy doesn’t suit us”—but no one says it out loud. The meeting ends, everyone returns to their tasks—the rhythm of operations continues. The strategy document is filed away. “Let’s get started,” someone says. But nothing happens.

Strategy is still “on the agenda”—but it’s no longer anyone’s priority. If employees were asked about the strategic priorities set at the beginning of the year, most would be unable to answer; because the strategy has either been communicated to employees too late, incompletely, or not at all. Leaders, meanwhile, have set the strategy aside while pursuing their own departmental goals. Implementing the strategy is like pulling into the pits at 300 km/h to change the engine components—the strategy is put on hold so as not to miss the current target. By the end of the year, the targets may be met—but the gears are either overheated or broken. Because the strategy wasn’t implemented that year, it becomes harder to implement the following year; the likelihood of a delayed or improperly timed strategy being successfully implemented diminishes over time. Short-term gains turn into long-term losses. The leader saves the day—but puts the company’s future at risk.

The organization has become blind to the word “strategy.” Strategy no longer carries any meaning beyond being a buzzword in *Harvard Business Review* or business books. In 360-degree leadership feedback surveys, items such as “developing strategy,” “implementing strategy,” and “devoting more time to strategy than to operations” have become the areas where leaders receive the lowest scores. Every new discussion of strategy is met with a “here we go again” attitude—because none of them have ever been implemented. Competitors have reshaped the market, and new players have entered the scene. The company is still standing—but it’s struggling to survive through reactive decisions. It is not the “strategy execution muscle” that has atrophied, but the “strategic thinking muscle” itself. In other words, muscle has been lost—and regaining that muscle takes much longer than never losing it in the first place.