Title: The essence of strategy: The what, the why and the how
Headings: The essence of strategy
The essence of strategy
The what, the why and the how

Content: In contrast, once you have established clarity around the options, criteria and trade-offs, you gain immense clarity in your strategic thinking process. Making trade-offs explicit is the pre-condition for understanding the strategic challenge your organization is facing, exploring and discussing the different options and ultimately making a well-reasoned choice. To help you and your team gain more clarity around making these important strategic choices, you must ask and discuss the following questions: How do you evaluate whether a specific option would be a good strategic choice? Which criteria are most important to you? Do you agree in your team on which objectives matter most, and which ones are of secondary importance? Did you sufficiently explore different possible options and clearly lay out all potential choices you could make? Are you clear about the trade-offs that come with each option? What are you going to gain and give up with each one of them? Communicate the "Why" Alas, just making a strategic choice is not the end of the story: