What Strategy Isn’t

Strategy is not incremental improvement. This does not mean that educational institutions shouldn't embrace continuous improvement as a way of doing business. It just means that doing anything else is stupid on its face, and Roger Martin, former University of Toronto Rotman School dean, likes to say that anything the opposite of which is stupid on its face is not strategy. Of course you should strive to improve, always, but why wouldn't you do this as a normal course of business? Strategy, on the other hand, is about the choice(s) you make between alternatives neither of which is stupid. 

So many schools conflate strategy and incremental improvement. Most likely, this is because things are pretty good as they are, and anything truly bold would ruffle someone's feathers. True strategy is almost guaranteed to ruffle feathers—it inevitably involves bothersome choices that include and exclude actions. This is why strategic thinking in successful institutions is such hard work. Incremental improvement is not hard work—it ruffles fewer feathers and is difficult to argue against because the opposite is stupid on its face.