Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Strategy Meets Reality Podcast

AI is moving faster than our organisations can make sense of, and that gap is where strategy breaks. We sit down with Adrian Wolfberg, a former national security practitioner and author of Who Leads When AI Thinks, to unpack a tough reality: success with AI is not mainly a technology problem; it is a leadership, context, and knowledge integration problem.

We start with boundaries and organisational intelligence, the way functions and hierarchies shape what people see, what they value, and what they miss. Adrian shares a concrete story of “Crossing Boundaries”, a skip-level forum designed to surface intractable problems and turn frontline signals into action through accountability and a real business case. It is a grounded look at strategy execution, not theory.

From there we zoom out to generative AI and large language models, and why this shift feels like a societal transformation rather than another software rollout. AI can be faster than any team, but it isn't accountable, and it cannot truly hold organisational context, history, politics, relationships, or ethical judgement. That means leaders have to design permeability across silos, strengthen feedback loops, and model the behaviours that keep humans and AI aligned as the environment changes.

If you’re thinking about AI governance, organisational design, decision-making, and the future of leadership, this conversation will give you practical angles and better questions. Subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with your take: where do you think this human-AI relationship is heading?

Find Adrian's work here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianwolfberg/

Website: https://www.oicllc.org/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most strategy starts in the wrong place. Someone picks the destination, the deck gets built, and nobody stops to examine the ground the organisation is actually standing on.

No guest this week. Mike Jones is solo to talk about where the podcast is heading, why he wants more leaders inside organisations rather than commenting from outside them, and what it's been like finishing the book, which is now with the publisher and out on 2nd of March.

Then he gets into the thing he keeps having to argue for. Reality first, aspiration second. Where you actually stand, who else is on the terrain with you, and the constraints that give that ground its topology, because some options look attractive on paper and turn out to be Everest. Start with the aspiration, and you'll do what young soldiers do with a map: shape the ground until it matches what you're holding, then get lost.

The second half is the part Mike finds hardest to get across: strategy isn't a straight line you walk; it's a relationship you're locked into. Move, and other actors move back, whether they mean to or not. So who responds, how would you know it's coming, and what happens if you do nothing at all? That last question saved a client from handing a small competitor the room to grow into a serious problem three years out.

It all runs on organisational intelligence, which is a reserve. Neglect it, and it depletes, and you end up crossing terrain blindfolded.

If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with someone who owns a strategy, and leave a review. What part of your organisation’s “reality” are you avoiding right now?

Send Mike a Message

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Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

If your organisation keeps saying "we need to be more innovative" while doing everything possible to crush experimentation, this conversation is for you. I'm joined by Robyn Bolton, founder and Chief Navigator at MileZero, to get brutally practical about what it takes to turn a growth strategy into results when uncertainty, incentives and internal politics get in the way. 

We explore the core tension leaders face: most people rise by mastering operating excellence in a high-knowledge environment, then get asked to deliver innovation in a low-knowledge, high-assumption world. Robyn lays out a simple, disciplined alternative to big-bang roll-outs: apply the scientific method, break work into assumptions, write hypotheses, and run quick tests starting with the deal killers. Along the way, we unpack why moving fast in the wrong direction is worse than moving slowly in the right one, plus a memorable McDonald's shrimp salad story that shows what happens when nobody checks the maths early. 

We also tackle why innovation is rarely an ideas problem. It's a leadership problem and an organisational design problem: governance that rewards wordy papers over learning, incentives tied to the quarter, and corporate antibodies that swarm anything new. We discuss why "lean is the enemy of learning" can be true in exploration, how to define a clear growth gap that forces focus, why portfolios beat single heroic bets, and how to treat AI as a tool rather than a strategy fad. 

If you want innovation strategy, growth strategy and corporate innovation to survive contact with reality, subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more leaders find the practical playbook.

Find Robyn's work here:

https://www.milezero.io

https://www.unlockinginnovation.co

Send Mike a Message

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Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

A strategy can look flawless on a slide deck and still fail the moment it reaches the real world. I’m joined by Evan Campbell, technology executive, former management consultant, and author of Adapt to Win, to unpack why organisations with “good strategy” so often struggle with strategy execution, strategic alignment, and making day-to-day work match leadership intent.

We get practical about what breaks: strategy decay as clarity gets lost down the hierarchy, the inertia of an organisation already in motion, and the false comfort of performative rollout activity. Evan explains why OKRs only deliver focus, alignment, and accountability when they are built with a genuine bottom-up contribution, not pushed downhill like old-school MBOs. We also separate the work into three capabilities you can actually improve: strategy development, strategy deployment, and strategy execution, including the controls and feedback loops that stop teams from discovering failure at the end of the quarter.

From there, we move into lean portfolio management and investment decisions. If you cannot kill projects, you cannot be adaptive. We talk zombie projects, budget defensiveness, and why portfolio managers often default to ROI and NPV because it feels “objective”, even when it quietly starves innovation. The thread running through everything is trade-offs and accountability: executives must be clear about what not to do, give teams decision rights, and shorten the loop between decisions and consequences.

If you want strategy to survive contact with reality, this conversation will give you a sharper lens and a few uncomfortable questions to ask on Monday. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the biggest execution problem you see in your organisation.

Find Evan's work here: 
Adapt to Win: https://adapttowin.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evcampbell/

Send Mike a Message

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Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy sounds clean on a slide deck. Then you try to deliver it inside a system with competing priorities, blurred boundaries, and a public spotlight that never switches off.

I’m joined by senior civil servant Alison Guthrie-Wrenn to talk about strategy execution where constraints are real, relationships are long-term, and legitimacy is not automatically granted. We compare what it feels like to drive change from inside an organisation versus advising from the outside, and why power dynamics and internal politics shape what can be challenged and what must be navigated.

From there, we get practical about systems thinking in government: how to start small, build influence, and use a systemic lens to see interconnections rather than isolated projects. Alison shares why large transformation programmes so often fail, and why the most resilient approach is to hold tight to a clear vision and purpose while keeping the plan flexible as reality shifts underneath you.

We also tackle the uniquely public-sector challenge of political cycles, where the route can change overnight, and sometimes even the destination changes too. Add volatility, misinformation, and “trial by Twitter”, and leaders need ways to keep options open without retreating into vague commitments. If you care about adaptive strategy, organisational change, and making better decisions in complex systems, this one will give you the language and tools you can use straight away.

Subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review with the most useful question you’re now asking about your own strategy.

Connect with Alison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonguthrie-wrenn/

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy sounds clean on paper until it hits real markets, real customers, real competitors and real time pressure. I’m joined by Andreas Panayiotou from Notion Capital to unpack what venture capital actually optimises for, why VC is a long-horizon game, and how that reality shapes startup strategy, leadership, and decision-making from day one. 

We get specific about the scaling journey and the uncomfortable statistics behind it: the power law of venture returns, why many companies stall at key revenue thresholds, and what founders often misunderstand when early traction stops growing. Andreas explains the £3m “chasm” where product-market fit is not enough, and why the hardest move is turning founder-led selling into a repeatable go-to-market engine. We talk positioning, focus, sales motion, and the practical need to document what works so a team can execute it consistently. 

Markets do not sit still, and AI disruption makes that painfully obvious. We explore how timing and luck can reshape viability, why some businesses get leapfrogged, and what it takes to pivot without losing the plot. That leads into a sharper theme: speed and judgement. We debate explore versus exploit, Andy Grove’s “let chaos reign” approach, one-way door versus two-way door decisions, and why hiring for intuition and good taste can matter more than perfect data. 

If you’re building, investing, or leading strategy in a fast-changing environment, you’ll take away concrete lessons on startup scaling, go-to-market strategy, and adapting to AI-driven change. Subscribe, share with someone building a startup, and leave a review with your biggest question about scaling past the first revenue ceiling.

Find Andreas here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anpanayiotou/

Send Mike a Message

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Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Your strategy can look brilliant on paper and still be totally disconnected from reality. We talk with Dr Alice Jing Shan, who is the originator of Relational Dynamics™, the founder of ScholarLand Ltd, and an independent researcher and writer. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Edinburgh. Her work examines how human systems form, stabilise, drift, adapt, and sometimes collapse under constraint over time. Relational Dynamics™ is her original lens for understanding these system trajectories.

Her work moves across complexity, language, culture, leadership, governance, strategy, risk, and AI as a condition shaping human systems. Across disciplines, scales, and narrative forms, she traces how relational dynamics shape stability, adaptation, meaning, judgment, and collapse over time.

We unpack a practical distinction many organisations blur: strategy is field-level awareness, while tactics are the specific moves, who does what when. When teams obsess over competitor activity or internal productivity without tracking relationships and feedback loops, they can become “busy” while making no strategic advance. We also go deep on the variables most strategy documents ignore: constraints, tempo, and timing, not as calendar dates but as thresholds and developmental time. If the interface is missing, there is no entry, and no amount of effort turns a good idea into real impact. 

Language is one of the biggest interfaces in any organisation, and AI is rapidly reshaping it. We explore why “more communication” is not the fix, how power dynamics show up between native and non-native speakers, and how large language models can produce fluent, confident text that still drifts away from intent. We finish on a question that matters to anyone using AI for strategy, analysis, or planning: are we still in relationship with reality, or are we just getting better at responding to representations of reality? 

Subscribe for more conversations where strategy meets reality, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with your take on the closing question.

Find Alice's work here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanjingalice/

Substack: https://alicejingshan.substack.com/ 

Here is one of her latest works: From AI to AIR: Augmented Intelligence Reasoning · v0.2

A reframe of the AI discourse, shifting the focus from AI as an abstract object to reasoning, relationships, and real-world conditions.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20436861

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Your organisation might have a polished strategy deck, a neat org chart, and a backlog full of “agile” work, yet decisions still stall and accountability still blurs. That is the gap we tackle with our guest Martin Pfiffner, author of The Neurology of Business. He identifies the missing third dimension of structure. Beyond anatomy (boxes) and physiology (process), we dig into organisational neurology, the real wiring of decision rights, control, and communication. When that wiring is unclear, work escalates, leaders overload, and you end up with what Dan Davies calls an unaccountability machine.

We bring cybernetics into the boardroom without the jargon. Martin explains why communication never works perfectly, and why viable systems rely on negative feedback loops and closed-loop control to correct mistakes quickly. We connect that thinking to the Viable System Model, recursion levels, and the very practical question most organisations avoid: who steers whom, and which dimension actually leads, product, region, customer, or something else. That clarity is often the difference between moving at speed and getting stuck in endless consensus.

We also challenge common strategy habits: confusing planning horizons with strategy, treating strategy as a one-off project, and ignoring constraints created by past investments and relationships. Instead, we talk about real-time strategy cycles, essential variables that simplify complexity, and how to navigate uncertainty without pretending you can predict it.

We finish with a sharp warning and a hopeful path for AI. AI will not fix a broken organisation; it will accelerate it. Fix the decision and governance structure first, then use AI to strengthen organisational memory, sensing, and learning. If you find this useful, subscribe, share it with a colleague who wrestles with decision bottlenecks, and leave us a review with the one structural question your organisation needs to answer next.

Find Martin's Work: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-dr-pfiffner-07534459/
His book The Neurology of Business: https://amzn.eu/d/046UympH

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

AI is moving fast, but the real risk is moving fast in the wrong direction. We sit down with Dr Mark Bloomfield, founder of Turbulence and a fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, to get past the hype and talk about what AI transformation looks like when strategy meets reality. If you have ever heard “we need an AI strategy” and felt the room skip the hard questions, you will recognise the boardroom tension we unpack: change management, competitive advantage, and the uncomfortable truth that with AI, there is no neat finish line. 

We challenge the efficiency-first story that dominates so many generative AI rollouts. Yes, AI can cut cycle times, but we argue the bigger prize is capacity: headspace for better judgment, clearer choices, and the courage to reimagine work. Mark explains why AI is best treated as a capability, not a magic USB-C plug-in, and we explore practical uses like strategy simulation, horizon scanning, synthetic personas, and using voice agents to interrogate ideas rather than blindly accepting “synthesis”. 

We also get honest about the darker edges: outsourcing judgment, metacognitive laziness, AI obesity, hidden operational costs, token economics, and the way incentives can trigger fear or even sabotage. From governance and accountability to how humans and agentic AI might coordinate work, we keep coming back to one theme: intentional use, with humans staying responsible for meaning, context, and decisions. 

If you want a pragmatic, human-centred take on generative AI, organisational change, and strategic planning, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who is drowning in AI noise, and leave us a review with your answer: where will you draw the line on what you will not outsource?

Find Mark's work here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmarkbloomfield/

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy fails in the gap between the plan and the lived reality of work, and that gap is where most leaders burn out. We sit down with Richard Claydon, an organisational theorist focused on leadership in complex and ambiguous environments, to name what’s really happening when teams feel overloaded, stuck and quietly cynical despite “doing everything right”. 

We dig into the confusion tax: the hidden cost that appears when run work, serve work and change work become tightly entangled. That’s when the coordinating middle gets squeezed, sensemaking time disappears, and only operational delivery looks visible or legitimate. Richard offers a sharp lens on the lived experience as stretch, tangle and drift, and we challenge the false fixes that turn into theatre, from extra boards and reporting to superficial wellbeing initiatives that never touch the underlying system. 

From there, we build a practical model of leadership that goes beyond direction and care. Richard explains three leadership grammars: sovereignty (decisions and clarity), solidarity (trust and commitment) and the missing piece, sensemaking (reading conditions, aligning interpretations and choosing moves the system can bear). We also explore “Maya”, an amalgamation of effective leaders, to show how sensemaking becomes action through interpretation, mobilisation across stakeholders and small bounded experiments that create islands of coherence you can scale. 

If you care about leadership development, organisational complexity, systems thinking and strategy execution that actually works, this conversation will give you language and methods you can use immediately. Subscribe for more, share this with a leader who needs breathing room, and leave a review with the biggest source of confusion tax in your organisation.

Find Richard's work here: 
Substack: https://richardclaydon.substack.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drrichardclaydon/

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy fails in a painfully predictable place: the moment it leaves the boardroom and lands in everyone else’s calendar. We sit down with Jurriaan Kamer to get brutally practical about why “alignment” so often becomes a loud broadcast, a perfect slide deck, and a quiet wave of cynicism on the ground. Instead, we dig into what actually moves strategy execution forward: orientation to real conditions, clear choices, and activation that gives teams room to interpret and self-align.

We also borrow a performance system from an unexpected teacher: Formula One. F1 teams don’t just race fast; they learn fast. Jurriaan explains how reflection is scheduled, how debriefs create psychological safety without losing accountability, and why the best teams rally around a single priority rather than a crowded list. We connect this to organisational design, cross-functional teams, and making work visible by mapping the value chain and measuring time-to-market.

Finally, we tackle the hard leadership habits that keep strategy connected to reality: explicit trade-offs through “even over” statements, strategic intent that is ambitious yet achievable over a 2- to 4-year horizon, and the overlooked power of reversible decisions. Less perfection, more experimentation, and more slack so people can think, collaborate, and adapt as the external environment shifts.

If this helps you rethink how your organisation turns strategy into daily work, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Find Jurriaan's work: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jurriaankamer/
His books
Unblock: https://amzn.eu/d/0j8eVFIF
Formula X: https://amzn.eu/d/051BMbWY

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy falls apart in the messy middle between plans and execution, and that is exactly where we spend our time with Alex Vohr, author of Speed Kills: Leveraging John Boyd's OODA Loop to Build Organisations That Win. Alex brings a rare mix of experience as a US Marine Corps logistician, a commander in Iraq, a leader in disaster relief operations, and now the president of OneLNG an energy startup building small-scale LNG infrastructure. We use that lens to explore why “strategy meets reality” is not a slogan, but a daily operational problem.

We dig into John Boyd’s OODA Loop as a practical model for decision making in complex adaptive systems, not the oversimplified four-step circle most people quote. Alex explains why orientation drives everything, how assumptions create risk, and why a decision should be treated as a hypothesis that only becomes true when action and feedback confirm it. If you care about organisational agility, learning organisations, and faster strategy execution, the takeaway is clear: improve how you observe, how you make sense, how you decide, how you act, and how you learn.

We also challenge the “false god of efficiency” and the comfort of linear planning. Planning, red teaming, and after-action reviews are not bureaucratic theatre; they are tools for reducing surprise and building a relevant, effective tempo. We talk about incentives, the “zero defects” mentality, and why big organisations drift into entropy when they stop listening to the edges of the system.

If this conversation helps you rethink how your team learns and executes, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Find Alex here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-vohr-83b38767/
Get his book: https://amzn.eu/d/01B56POu

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy often fails for a boring reason: nobody knows who can decide what, and everything slows to a crawl. We sit down with Stefan Norrvall, joining us from Australia, to unpack organisational coherence and why it beats the usual push for “alignment” when dealing with real-world complexity. If your organisation feels busy but stuck, this conversation gives you language for what is happening and a model for what to fix first.

We dig into Stefan’s run serve change heuristic and how each layer carries a different type of work, a different time horizon, and a different kind of complexity. Run creates value at the frontline. Serve as a coordinating hub across multiple run units to ensure they do not clash on resources, standards, platforms, or handovers. Change sets intent and enterprise constraints by reading the external environment, defining risk appetite, and making the big calls that shape the system. When serve is missing, leaders get dragged into operational conflict and lose the capacity to do real strategy work.

From there, we name the “confusion tax”: the financial and human cost of unclear decision rights, endless escalation, and slow governance. We talk scenario-based tests that reveal where decision latency is baked in, why PMOs and change teams often report without authority, and why copying frameworks cannot compensate for poor operating model design. We also challenge strategy theatre, forced cascades, and agile rituals that do not improve decisions. If you want strategy execution that actually meets reality, listen, subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review with the biggest confusion tax you see in your organisation.

Find Stefan's Work: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefannorrvall/
Substack: https://substack.com/@synexia
​The Organisational Confusion Tax Scorecard: https://scorecard.synexia.au/confusion-tax

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Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most organisations don’t fail at strategy because they lack ambition. They fail because they skip the one thing that has to come first: an honest read of reality. In this solo reflection, Mike Jones pulls together the strongest themes from the recent run of conversations and the client work that’s been sharpening my thinking, from strategic blind spots to the quiet damage caused by “organisational disassociation”, the gap between what leaders want to be true and what the environment will actually allow. 

He talks about why orientation beats decision-making and how overreaching plans create cynicism among senior leaders and the people expected to execute strategy. From there,  he moves into strategy communication and the trap of amplifying noise: big launches, polished narratives and endless repetition that still leave teams unclear about what to do. The alternative is intent-led strategic leadership, creating space for interpretation, context and back-briefing so people can make tough choices and adapt without being micromanaged. 

Then he goes deeper: what is strategy for? If strategy is mainly governance for the board, or an external projection of virtue that marketing can polish, it becomes theatre rather than a useful discipline. He offers a different frame: strategy as the practice that enables organisations to pursue viability and advantage in a changing political and economic environment, tightening the loop between hypotheses and surprise as the world evolves. 

Subscribe for more on organisational strategy, share this with someone wrestling with strategic planning, and leave a review if it helps. What is strategy for in your organisation, really?

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

The strategy looks clean on paper. Real strategy is sweaty, uncertain, and intensely human. Mike Jones sits down with Matt Finch, a strategist, foresight practitioner, negotiator and mediator, to get underneath the slide decks and into the lived experience of decision-making under pressure. We talk about why so many strategic plans stall at execution, and how the missing piece is often what people are feeling but cannot yet say out loud. 

Matt brings a grounded view from scenario planning and high-stakes work: leaders are not just thinking machines, they are bodies in a room, picking up signals, anxiety, hope and resistance. We dig into gut feel versus spreadsheet logic, the temptation to post-rationalise decisions after the fact, and the growing risk of outsourcing judgement to AI in strategy. AI can generate polished strategy outputs, but it cannot carry accountability, context or commitment. 

From military leadership to organisational culture, we explore practical ways to create clarity without building a rigid “Greek villa” strategy: clear intent, light constraints, and the back brief that forces real translation. We also tackle power and role boundaries, why psychological safety is never a magic switch, and how to read the room using attention tools like bracketing and horizontalising. The conversation lands on a sharp strategic question for any leader: would you like what your strategy makes you become? 

If you care about leadership, strategic planning, foresight, and decision-making under uncertainty, listen through and share it with someone who’s carrying the weight of a hard call. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what’s one “unsaid” truth you think your organisation needs to name?

Connect with Matt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-finch/

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Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy can feel like a choice between two bad options: a rigid annual plan that gets ignored by February, or constant agility that mistakes motion for direction. We sit down with Joel Grundy, Head of Strategy at Q5, to get back to what strategy is meant to do: help leaders make a small number of tough choices in an uncertain world, without pretending we can “bridle” the market into certainty.

We dig into the lived reality of internal strategy work: building coalitions across investment, technology, people, and go-to-market teams, and staying close enough to leadership that strategy doesn’t become a factory of outputs. Along the way, we challenge the habits that flatten thinking, from purpose statements that drift away from what a business actually does, to pillars that become buckets for every initiative, to KPI lists that describe effects without naming the decisions that create them. Joel shares practical ways to improve strategic sensemaking, including war-gaming competitors and regulators, planning for shifting customer expectations, and keeping options open when you cannot know in advance what will work.

Real-world examples bring it to life: AI as a “firework inside the business”; Netflix and Disney making identity-shaping bets on IP; Apple’s scale and the difficulty of placing meaningful bets; and what defence and rail teach us about why market forces cannot always be the guiding mind. We close with a grounded view of the strategist’s role: not telling people what to do, but giving decision-makers what they need, sometimes as an analyst and sometimes as a counsellor, always with humility.

If you found this useful, subscribe, share it with a colleague who owns big decisions, and leave a review with the strategic question you’re wrestling with right now.

Find Joel here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-grundy-378b278/

Send Mike a Message

Enjoying the show?

Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.

🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy can look brilliant on paper and still fail the moment it meets the organisation that has to deliver it. We sit down with Gavin Rouch, an organisational development practitioner, to get honest about why that happens and what to do instead. We talk about organisations as interconnected systems in all their messy glory, where incentives, history, board pressure, and filtered information create strategic blind spots that senior leaders rarely see from the strategy room.

We dig into what “good strategy execution” actually demands: participation that brings operational reality into the process, decision-making that generates real options, and the humility to speak in probabilities rather than perform certainty. Gavin shares why strategies often become propaganda, full of glittering generalities, why tough choices should provoke anxiety, and why the most valuable work is often the dialogue behind the tools. We also explore how emotion and sensemaking shape whether people invest in the direction, and why broadcasting strategy through comms alone leaves teams cold.

From meeting waste and invisible knowledge work to HR and L&D translating strategy into capability building, we map practical ways to close the gap between intent and delivery. We finish with a clear message: strategy is not the exclusive domain of the senior leadership, and everyone has more agency than they think. If this sparked a few uncomfortable truths, subscribe for more, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review with the biggest strategy gap you see right now.

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy only matters if it survives contact with reality. We sit down with operations chief Jayson Coil to unpack how intent, trust, and disciplined initiative turn a tidy plan into effective action when the stakes are high and time is short. From wildfire lines to boardrooms, we dig into what leaders can do today to bridge the gap between strategy and execution without slipping into control for control’s sake.

Jayson shares frontline stories where readbacks, backbriefs, and honest After Action Reviews exposed interpretation gaps that would have sunk a plan. We talk through building contingencies that go beyond a single preferred course of action, running pre-mortems and red teams that actually change decisions, and the hard but vital habit of judging decision quality separately from outcomes. You will hear why punishing by outcome kills initiative and how to evaluate information sources, conduct bias checks, and make trade-offs instead.

Mission command takes centre stage: not a slogan, but a system. We explore the concrete behaviours that build climate—leaders inviting critique, defining constraints and intent, and creating safe-to-fail simulations where everyone, including the boss, is accountable. We look at aligning policies, incentives, and discipline so they do not undermine empowerment, and why competence in standard practice is the passport to freedom to deviate when context demands it. Along the way, Jayson offers practical tests you can apply: if every deviation needs permission, you have not built mission command; if teams can act on intent and you will back sound judgment, you are getting close.

If you want a clearer strategy, sharper execution, and a team that can adapt under pressure, this conversation delivers tools you can use: red teaming, readbacks, realistic training, and a relentless focus on “What is different today?” rather than “What’s the same.” Subscribe, share with a leader who needs it, and leave a short review with your biggest takeaway so we can keep raising the bar together.

Connect with Jayson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjaysoncoil/
Jayson's Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WQ_pQL8_WGlIrAcxSpKOQqxhyLNVGKn3/view?usp=sharing

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy doesn’t fail in spreadsheets; it fails when people can’t see themselves inside it. We sit down with David Slowly—journalist turned radio producer turned B2B strategist—to unpack a practical, repeatable way to turn direction into action through narrative. David traces how radio taught him to spark imagination without visuals and how working with data-driven teams demanded proof that stories change minds. The result is a simple 5-4-3-2-1 toolkit leaders can use on Monday morning: five Ws for raw facts, four Ps (princes, purses, pets, places) to hook attention, three acts to structure challenge–struggle–resolve, two states to maintain emotional momentum, and one killer headline that sticks when the room closes the deck.

We stress why most “strategies” read like to-do lists and how to shift from internal busyness to external effects. You’ll hear how to define the effect you want on your environment, then show what you will actually do to enable those effects to emerge. We build vision stories that make future states tangible without pretending certainty, and we argue for embracing ambiguity as a source of agency. People act when they feel trusted to fill intelligent gaps. That’s where identity matters: know what your organisation is today—capabilities, constraints, ethos—so you can choose the next credible moves and the options they unlock.

Expect hands-on tactics you can apply now: one-message emails that reduce friction, headlines that are promise, intrigue, or news, and live read-backs to test whether a message landed. We show how to use real places and specifics to feel true to your culture, map likely struggles by function, and define a crisp resolve: when the smoke clears, what will be observably different out there. Tell the journey and cast your audience as the hero; they’ll start pre-solving as you speak. If people can’t picture it, they won’t do it—so give them a story that fits the work and earns belief.

If this conversation helps you rethink how you communicate strategy, subscribe, share it with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with your one killer headline.

Find David's work here: https://harveydavid.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Why-You-Need-A-Business-Story-And-How-To-Create-It-1.pdf

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy often treats the future like a straight road. We treat it like a landscape. With Lasse Jonasson, Chief Foresight Officer at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, we unpack how to swap predictions for preparedness and why language is the first tool of good strategy. When leaders share a vocabulary for assumptions, signals, and scenarios, conversations stop drifting and decisions start compounding.

We dig into practical moves that any team can run this quarter. Start by stress testing your three-year plan against plausible ten-year futures: what must stay true for it to work, what signals would disprove it, and who owns the call to pivot. We show how to identify elements of your organisation that endure across scenarios and those that demand redesign. Rather than chase certainty, build optionality with explicit triggers, resource pathways, and decision rights. You’ll hear why “strategic ambiguity” is not vagueness but a guardrailed space where discovery and delivery both win.

AI and geopolitics headline the change, but their real impact lies in how they reshape relationships, processes, and business models. Most leaders explore AI for efficiency; the advantage arrives when you reimagine work and value creation. We contrast the machine metaphor of management with the ecosystem metaphor, making the case for cultures that sense, adapt, and learn in public. We also challenge tidy hero stories and winner’s myths, highlighting how documenting assumptions and debates—now easier with AI—helps teams separate preparation from luck and improve cycle after cycle.

If you’re ready to make strategy a living practice—futures literacy, scenario thinking, and identity-aware choices—this conversation will give you the prompts and patterns to begin. Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns a roadmap, and leave a review with the one assumption you plan to test next.

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy doesn’t live in a binder; it lives in motion. We sit down with practitioner-author Erik Schön to reconnect strategy with doing, drawing on Sun Tzu’s correlative pairs, Boyd’s OODA orientation, and Wardley Maps to turn abstract plans into concrete manoeuvres. From the first minutes, we challenge the ritual of annual decks and fixed KPIs, arguing for shorter strategy loops that privilege learning, outcomes, and a clear line of sight to the customer.

Erik unpacks the engine behind durable advantage: the dance of expected and surprise. Customers must get the table stakes they anticipate, but loyalty and growth emerge when you add a well-timed, positive surprise. Think iPhone’s shock, or Ericsson’s practice of shipping at least one “desire to use” feature per release. We translate this into practical moves: mapping capabilities, exposing gaps, and deciding when to build, buy, or outsource. Wardley Maps become the team’s shared terrain, shifting debates from personalities to dependencies and evolution—from novel to commodity.

We also tackle culture and cadence. Quarterly retrospectives and prospectives beat annual ceremonies because they compress feedback, curb KPI tunnel vision, and empower small experiments with fast ROI. Drawing on mission command, we favour firm intent with flexible plans: leaders set outcomes, teams design manoeuvres. Along the way, we explore why some firms stall on “expected, expected, expected,” how to avoid self-induced ambiguity, and what Eastern comfort with change can teach Western efficiency cultures. Real-world examples—from Netflix’s global-local bet to Nvidia’s pivot from gaming to AI—show how capability compounding and orientation shifts tilt markets.

The close is a call to shape the conditions before you need a burning platform. Make the terrain visible, invest time in improvement work, and reward independent thinking within shared intent. If this conversation helps you see strategy as a daily practice—mapping, choosing, experimenting—tap follow, share with a colleague who loves real strategy, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Find Erik's work here:
blog post: https://medium.com/an-idea/the-art-of-strategy-ac4165c0c085 
Book site: https://yokosopress.jimdofree.com/#ArtOfStrategy

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if the most powerful strategy lessons aren’t found in boardrooms but in everyday life at the edge of uncertainty? We sit down with Sarah Kernion, founder of Inch Stones and mother of two non-speaking autistic children, to explore how frontline parenting becomes a masterclass in orientation, sense making, and adaptive leadership. The conversation is candid, challenging, and grounded: you can’t outdecide a misaligned orientation, and quick decisions that endure are the by-product of clarity, not adrenaline.

We dig into why “inch stones” beat grand milestones when growth isn’t linear and why accommodations, far from signalling weakness, often expose the exact places a system can get stronger. Sarah shares practical examples, like visual scheduling that helped her children and unexpectedly improved routine for a neurotypical sibling—proof that inclusive design scales value. Together we dissect John Boyd’s OODA, clearing up the myth that it’s about speed. Orientation is not what you see; it’s how you make sense of what you see. Leaders who build cultures of sense making ask better questions, retire dead KPIs, and trade control for clarity—because comfort is optional, but learning is non-negotiable.

There’s also a provocative look at neurodiversity as an operational edge. Different brains notice different signals, and in dynamic environments that diversity of noticing can become decisive advantage. We talk echo chambers, identity, and how tactical humility keeps orientation tethered to reality. Expect crisp takeaways: replace fear with strategy, define outcomes before metrics, and anchor decisions in environment, intent, and constraints. When you do, speed emerges naturally, teams act with confidence, and progress compounds—one inch stone at a time.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague who protects green dashboards, and leave a review with the one assumption you’ll destroy and replace next.

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy only matters if it changes what people do tomorrow. We bring Stephen Bungay, author of The Art of Action, to unpack how mission command turns intent into execution without drowning teams in detail. Instead of orders that prescribe how to act, directives clarify what to achieve and why it matters—freeing people to adapt their methods as conditions shift.

We trace the roots from Prussian Auftragstaktik to modern NATO doctrine, then translate the core ideas into the boardroom. Stephen lays out a practical framework: share the real context, state higher intent and your own intent, surface implied tasks, and set clear boundaries. The heartbeat is the backbrief: teams explain how they’ll deliver the outcome, leaders confirm alignment, and everyone moves faster with fewer escalations. Along the way, we tackle the persistence of Taylorism, why lists and slide decks masquerade as strategy, and how over‑control smothers initiative while under‑guidance invites chaos.

If you lead teams in uncertain markets, this conversation gives you tools to create high alignment and high autonomy at the same time. You’ll hear battle‑tested examples, from SOPs that help without handcuffing, to writing intent that drives real trade‑offs, to building situational awareness so people can decide well under pressure. Start small: give problems, not solutions; ask for a backbrief; reward judgement over compliance. Subscribe for more conversations on strategy that survives contact with reality, and leave a review to share where you’ll test mission command first.

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Modern work is overflowing with nonsense. Mandatory e-learning that teaches nothing, policies no one reads, collaboration that never happens, and metrics that drive the wrong behaviour.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by James Healy, applied behavioural scientist and author of BS at Work, to unpack why organisations get pulled into performative nonsense and how behavioural science helps us escape it.

James talks about the realities of human nature, why environment shapes behaviour, and why organisations keep adding more policies, processes and tech instead of removing what gets in the way. From the illusion of collaboration to the seduction of simple solutions, this is a grounded, funny and painfully accurate look at how modern work goes wrong and what to do instead.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why so much of modern work is BS
 • The behavioural science behind human nature at work
 • Why mandatory e-learning never changes behaviour
 • The paradox of human behaviour and herd dynamics
 • How metrics distort decisions and create perverse incentives
 • Collaboration myths and why people do not collaborate
 • Why organisations always add and never subtract
 • Technology overload and the infinite workday
 • Principles over policies
 • Outcomes over activities
 • The do less principle and why subtraction matters
 • Challenging organisational norms and asking why

🎧 Keywords: Behavioural Science, BS at Work, Human Behaviour, Collaboration, Metrics, Organisational Culture, Decision Making, Leadership, Performance, Simplicity, Strategy Execution

📘 James’s Book: https://amzn.eu/d/a1XHcvV

📬 Connect with James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-healy-behaviour-boutique/

📬 Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones

🌐 Full Episodes: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategy-meets-reality

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most organisations overthink strategy and underdo it.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones sits down with Alex Smith, author of No Bullsh**t Strategy, to explore why strategy has drifted into a thinking exercise instead of a doing discipline.

Alex explains why the fundamentals of strategy are simple, why leaders obsess over the wrong things, and why the real work starts when you make a move your competitors cannot or will not copy. From diagnosing industry flaws to the value of sacrifice and contrarian thinking, this is a grounded conversation that cuts through jargon and brings strategy back to action.

🔍 In this episode:

• Only as better than best: why out-competing rarely works
 • Sacrifice as the engine of real innovation
 • Strategy as a doing discipline
 • The macro vs micro problem in organisations
 • Why language corrupts strategic thinking
 • Why customer obsession kills good strategy
 • Diagnosing industry problems, not customer problems
 • Simple execution that people can actually act on

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, No Bulls**t Strategy, Competitive Advantage, Industry Diagnosis, Strategic Simplicity, Execution, Action, Contrarian Strategy, Leadership, Decision Making

📘 Alex’s Work: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-m-h-smith/

📬 Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones

🌐 Full episodes: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategy-meets-reality

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Julian Chender—organisational design expert, strategy advisor, and founder of 11A Collaborative—to explore how to make strategy work in the messy reality of organisational life.

Julian draws on years of experience helping purpose-driven organisations redesign themselves to stay viable. They unpack the challenges of structure, capabilities, and leadership transitions—revealing how real constraints can actually sharpen strategic execution when handled with clarity and care.

From trust and convergence to feedback loops and freedom within constraints, this is a practical conversation for leaders navigating change, collaboration, and complexity.

🔍 In this episode:

• What organisational design really means—and why it’s strategic
• Adapting capabilities when strategy shifts
• Freedom within constraints: the paradox of effective delivery
• Building trust, feedback, and convergence into your operating model
• How organisational structure shapes—and enables—impact

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, Organisational Design, Operating Models, Structure, Capabilities, Leadership, Execution, Collaboration, Purpose-Driven, Julian Chender

📘 Learn more about Julian’s work: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianchender

🌐 11A Collaborative: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11a-collaborative/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if the future of health isn’t just about fixing sickness—but creating value in how we live?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Andy Wilkins—founder of Future of Health, futures strategist, and author—to rethink what strategy means in health and care systems.

They explore why efficiency often works against long-term health outcomes, how integrated care and lived experience must shape policy, and why the next generation of strategy must learn faster than the systems it’s trying to change. This is a forward-looking, systems-based conversation on rethinking health, leadership, and public value.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why healthcare strategy must move beyond efficiency
• From treating sickness to building resilience
• Using lived experience and Three Horizons thinking
• Rethinking leadership and the role of AI
• Designing health systems that adapt and learn

🎧 Keywords: Healthcare Strategy, Value in Health, Futures Thinking, Systems Change, Integrated Care, Three Horizons, Public Sector Leadership, AI in Health, Resilience, Andy Wilkins

📘 Learn more about Andy’s work: https://www.vision4health.co.uk/

 📬 Connect with Andy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andywilkins/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Strategy isn’t a performance—it’s a practice.

In this special solo episode, host Mike Jones reflects on what 30 episodes of Strategy Meets Reality have revealed about the state of modern strategy. He explores why strategy fails first in perception, not execution, and how organisations confuse alignment with coherence, performance with action, and control with orientation.

Drawing on lessons from Boyd, Sun Tzu, and the 30+ guests who’ve shaped this journey, Mike challenges the branding-led view of strategy and calls for a return to strategy as movement—anchored in perceptual clarity, structural capability, and a shared sense of reality.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why strategy fails in the boardroom, not the field
• The perceptual complexity behind strategic failure
• How structural inertia widens the decision-to-action gap
• Why coherence beats alignment in turbulent environments
• The role of freedom of action in resilient execution
• How we lost the art of manoeuvre—and how to bring it back

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/ 

Learn more: https://substack.com/@strategymeetsreality https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, Execution, Leadership, Coherence, Perception, Structure, OODA Loop, Viability, Emergence, Strategic Orientation, Adaptive Organisations, Boyd, Sun Tzu, Viable System Model

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

The brain is your most powerful strategic tool—if you know how to use it.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones talks with Dr. Delia McCabe—neuroscientist and expert in nutritional neuroscience—about how neuroplasticity, nutrition, and stress shape leaders’ ability to think, decide, and adapt. They dive deep into the biology of creativity, the traps of mental fatigue, and why the structure of your brain determines the structure of your strategy.

Dr. McCabe explains how chronic stress, poor sleep, and cognitive overload literally close down creativity—while the right nutrients, rest, and mental frameworks can rewire your brain for better decision-making. From “additive thinking” and uncertainty fatigue to the dangers of believing what you feel, this is a masterclass in how to think better, not just faster.

🔍 In this episode:

• How brain structure shapes creative thinking
• Why stress kills neuroplasticity and creativity
• The additive problem—and why leaders avoid subtraction
• Information overload and the myth of productivity
• How to build resilience to uncertainty
• Changing minds through emotion and safety
• The “feeling of knowing” and decision-making traps
• The delicate balance between human cognition and AI

🎧 Keywords: Neuroplasticity, brain health, leadership, neuroscience, cognitive load, uncertainty, stress, nutrition, decision-making, creativity, mental resilience, emotional intelligence, organisational change, AI and cognition

📘 Learn more about Dr. Delia McCabe:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-delia-mccabe/
Substack: https://deliamccabe.substack.com/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Success can be blinding. Strategy is often where complacency hides best.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones speaks with Saul Betmead de Chasteigner—strategic advisor and transformation leader—about the hidden traps in organisations that seem to be “winning.” They unpack how strategy becomes theatre, why organisations resist feedback when things are going well, and how real transformation depends on psychological safety, clarity, and structural intent.

From autonomy and structure to feedback loops and values, this is a conversation about the inner work of organisational change—why it’s not just a structural fix, but a mindset shift.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why strategy breaks when we confuse motion for progress
• How “success syndrome” creates blind spots
• Autonomy, structure, and the tension in between
• The value of anti-complacency systems and lived feedback
• Why real transformation challenges power—not people

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, organisational change, transformation, autonomy, structure, feedback, success syndrome, leadership, psychological safety, execution, decision-making

📘 Learn more about Saul’s work: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saul-betmead/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Viability doesn’t come from vision. It comes from feedback, iteration, and the courage to learn.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Mick Brian—a consultant with a military background and a passion for learning systems—to unpack how organisations can survive and thrive in complex environments.

They explore what bees can teach us about decentralised decision-making, how the OODA Loop supports learning under pressure, and why real-time feedback is the foundation of strategic adaptability. From AI adoption to after-action reviews, this conversation connects lived experience, strategic thinking, and practical tools for evolving organisations.

🔍 In this episode:

• What organisations can learn from bee colonies
• Why after-action reviews matter more than performance reviews
• How the OODA Loop supports emergent learning
• The role of AI, autonomy, and self-organisation
• Why sensemaking starts with feedback
• The importance of collective purpose and decision-making at the edge

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, Feedback, Viability, Emergent Learning, OODA Loop, After-Action Reviews, Complexity, Beekeeping, Leadership, AI Adoption, Organisational Learning

📘 Learn more about Mick’s work: Agile on the Beach Sketch

📬 Connect with Mick: Mick Brian on LinkedIn

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Are your goals helping you adapt—or just perform?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Radhika Dutt joins Mike Jones to expose the hidden trap of OKRs and KPI-led management. Drawing on her latest work and the OHL Toolkit, Radhika introduces a radical shift: move from setting performance targets to setting puzzles.

They explore how metrics create fragility, why freedom of action matters, and how to scaffold real learning without losing direction. From military concepts to corporate leadership, this is a sharp critique of goal setting gone wrong—and a practical alternative for those ready to rethink success.

📥 Download the OHL Toolkit

🌐 Visit Radhika’s Website

🔗 Connect with Radhika on LinkedIn

🔍 In this episode:

• Why OKRs often create performance theatre
• Puzzle setting vs puzzle solving
• How scaffolding enables experimentation
• Freedom of action without losing control
• Rethinking what good leadership looks like
• The danger of mistaking metrics for outcomes

🎧 Keywords: OKRs, KPIs, leadership, complexity, adaptability, performance theatre, puzzle mindset, experimentation, scaffolding, radical product thinking, Radhika Dutt

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most nonsense in organisations isn’t malicious—it’s magnetic.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Paul Sweeney—author of Magnetic Nonsense: A Short History of Bullshit at Work—to unpack the rituals, myths, and illusions that derail progress inside organisations.

They dive into the dangers of detached leadership, the myth of heroic CEOs, and why so many change programmes fail before they begin. From performance theatre and wellbeing platitudes to the real impact of meetings, Paul exposes how nonsense embeds itself in culture—and what it takes to replace it with something better.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why magnetic nonsense is so attractive—and so hard to spot
• The gap between executive fantasy and frontline reality
• How buzzwords and best practices become blockers
• The illusion of change and the truth about transformation
• What critical thinking really looks like in leadership
• The importance of autonomy and design that fits reality

🎧 Keywords: Critical Thinking, Leadership, Culture, Organisational Nonsense, Change, Strategy Execution, Transformation, Autonomy, Corporate Myths

📘 Learn more about Paul’s book: Magnetic Nonsense

📬 Connect with Paul: Paul Sweeney on LinkedIn

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Antifragile is more than a buzzword—it’s a design principle.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones sits down with Janka Krings-Klebe—author of The Antifragile Organization—to explore what it means to design organisations that thrive under stress. They unpack why most governance systems constrain innovation, how financial incentives can block adaptability, and why autonomy and accountability must go hand in hand.

From ecosystem design to cultural enablers, this is a practical look at what it takes to shift from hierarchies to ecosystems—where learning, change, and resilience are not afterthoughts, but built into the DNA.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why fragility is baked into most governance and budgeting models
• How antifragile organisations navigate market disruption
• Designing autonomy and accountability together
• What value stream thinking means in practice
• The role of learning, culture, and failure in adaptability
• Why the shift is from stability to direction, not control

🎧 Keywords: Antifragility, ecosystem organisation, governance, budgeting, innovation, adaptability, autonomy, learning, organisational design

📘 Learn more about Janka’s work: https://www.co-shift.com/

 📕 Read her book: The Antifragile Organization (Amazon)

📬 Connect with Janka: LinkedIn

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Cybersecurity isn’t just about protecting data—it’s about enabling execution under pressure.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Glenn Wilson—cybersecurity expert, OODA loop practitioner, and founder of Dynaminet—to explore how the challenges of security mirror those of strategy. From technical debt to tool overload, commander's intent to learning loops, they unpack how poor decision-making, misaligned incentives, and lack of feedback erode both resilience and execution.

This is not a technical talk. It’s a strategy conversation about where things break—and what to do about it.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why strategy and cybersecurity face the same execution challenges
• The hidden cost of technical debt and over-engineering
• Why developer voice matters for resilience and tooling
• Using OODA and chaos engineering to build adaptive responses
• What commander's intent looks like in security
• How to embed security without killing innovation or joy

🎧 Keywords: Strategy Execution, Cybersecurity, OODA Loop, Technical Debt, Developer Experience, Chaos Engineering, Mission Command, Distributed Decision-Making, Leadership, Resilience

📘 Learn more: https://dynaminet.com

 📬 Connect with Glenn: Glenn Wilson on LinkedIn

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most strategy documents belong in a drawer. Real strategy is lived, spoken, and constantly adapted.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Professor Donald MacLean—physicist, strategist, and founder of Strategy Story—to unpack what makes strategy real, why we confuse it with policy and vision, and how governance is quietly killing adaptability.

Donald shares why strategy is emotional before it’s intellectual, why leadership is about enabling sensemaking, and why conversation—not control—is the engine of execution.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why real strategy is spoken, not written
• The difference between policy, vision, and strategy
• Why governance often strangles adaptability
• The human side of strategic commitment
• How to re-personalise strategy without dumbing it down
• What Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and football managers have in common

🎧 Keywords: Emergent Strategy, Governance, Strategic Execution, Complexity, Systems Thinking, Organisational Design, Engagement, Clausewitz, Storytelling, Open Strategy

📬 Connect with Donald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professordonaldmaclean/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most strategy frameworks promise clarity—but what happens when there is no map?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Elsa Henderson—consultant, facilitator, and PhD researcher on “wayfinding” in complexity. Drawing on her work with impact networks and her doctoral research into real-world leadership practice, Elsa explores what it means to make decisions, build strategy, and lead effectively when the future is unclear.

They unpack why traditional navigation fails in dynamic environments, why capacity matters more than capability, and how the aesthetics of leadership—the felt experience—shape what we notice, trust, and act on. It’s a rich, grounded conversation for leaders rethinking how strategy and sensemaking really work in practice.

🔍 In this episode:

• What wayfinding means—and why it matters in strategy
• The difference between capability and capacity in leadership
• Why frameworks are only useful if you can adapt them
• Practical wisdom and anticipatory capacity in action
• The emotional and aesthetic dimension of leadership decisions
• Rethinking time, identity, and feedback in organisational change

🎧 Keywords: Wayfinding, Strategy, Capacity, Complexity, Anticipatory Capacity, Practical Wisdom, Leadership, Dynamic Environments, Change, Sensemaking, Aesthetics, Tacit Knowledge, Adaptation

📬 Connect with Elsa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elsa-henderson-48b720132/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Most organisations measure success by profit. Hunter Hastings says that’s the wrong compass.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Hunter Hastings—strategist, author, and leading voice in systems thinking—to challenge the way businesses define and deliver value. They unpack why profit maximisation blinds leaders to opportunity, how autonomy unlocks creativity, and why removing barriers is the real work of leadership.

From shifting the paradigm away from efficiency to focusing on effectiveness, to breaking down the power structures that stifle action, this episode offers a practical roadmap for leaders who want to organise for adaptability and meaningful impact.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why value creation should drive strategy—not profit targets
• How autonomy fuels speed, creativity, and innovation
• The limits of efficiency as a business strategy
• Rethinking power dynamics in modern management
• Removing barriers to action across the organisation
• Why systems thinking is essential in a boundaryless business world

🎧 Keywords: Systems Thinking, Value Creation, Autonomy, Organisational Design, Leadership, Efficiency vs. Effectiveness, Power Dynamics, Strategy, Adaptability, Empowerment

📘 Learn more about Hunter: Hunter’s LinkedIn

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Planning isn’t about precision—it’s about possibility.

In this episode, Mike Jones is joined by Johan Ivari—Swedish Armed Forces officer, lecturer at the Swedish Defence University, and author of A Set-Based Approach: Searching for the Problem–Solution Eclipse. Together, they explore how strategy and execution can remain viable in a world shaped by unpredictability and complexity.

Johan challenges the illusion of control, unpacks why detailed plans often collapse on contact with reality, and explains how the set-based approach protects adaptability by expanding options, not narrowing them. From mission command and viable systems to cognitive agency and feedback loops, this episode is a rich exploration of thinking, learning, and leading in real time.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why narrative—not metrics—should lead execution
• The danger of detailed plans and false certainty
• How viable systems enable distributed action and coherence
• Why leaders must protect their organisation’s capacity to act
• The value of affordances and ‘coarse’ planning
• Why set-based planning improves decision quality and learning

🎧 Keywords: Set-Based Planning, Viable Systems, Mission Command, Complexity, Strategy Execution, Feedback Loops, Agency, Command and Control, Adaptive Leadership

📘 Read Johan’s paper: A Set-based Approach
📬 Connect with Johan: LinkedIn

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Leadership is no longer about maintaining the old—it’s about shapeshifting into the new.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Louise Le Gat, creator of the purpose-led roadmap, to explore how leaders must evolve in the face of global disruption, systemic shifts, and societal transformation.

Louise challenges us to stop being good soldiers of the status quo and become brave builders of the future. From mental model upgrades to organisational reinvention, this is a deep dive into the inner and outer shifts leaders must make to shape what comes next.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why we’re still acting like we’re safely in port—but we’re already in the storm
• The move from control to coherence, from managing to shaping
• How imagination and purpose redefine value in uncertain times
• Dismantling survival mechanisms and embracing uniqueness
• The inner system shifts that must accompany outer change
• Creating spaces for intrapreneurial agility and reinvention

🎧 Keywords: Leadership, System Shifts, Mental Models, Purpose-Led, Inner Work, Shapeshifting, Reinvention, Positive Impact, Complexity, Legacy Leadership

📘 Learn more about Louise’s work: https://www.louiselegat.com/
📬 Connect with Louise: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louiselegat

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Engagement isn’t a soft skill—it’s a strategic advantage.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Marcus Dimbleby—former RAF, red teaming expert, and founder of Effective Direction—to explore how critical thinking and challenge cultures sharpen execution in complex environments.

Marcus explains why most organisations suffer from self-inflicted complexity, why outputs are mistaken for outcomes, and how empowerment without clarity or capability leads nowhere. From psychological safety to adaptive planning and human-led strategy, this is a grounded conversation on execution that works under pressure.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why red teaming unlocks the best ideas—not just hierarchy-approved ones
• The ROI of engagement and the real cost of quiet quitting
• Why complexity isn’t the enemy—but confusion is
• How psychological safety enables challenge, not comfort
• The problem with planning theatre and faux empowerment
• Critical thinking as the foundation of execution

🎧 Keywords: Red Teaming, Strategy Execution, Critical Thinking, Leadership, Organisational Complexity, Psychological Safety, Empowerment, Engagement, Mission Command, Organisational Design

📘 Learn more about Marcus’s work: https://www.effectivedirection.com/
📬 Connect with Marcus: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusdimbleby

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Viability isn’t about predicting the future—it’s about preparing for many.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Norman Chorn—strategist, scenario thinker, and author—to challenge conventional planning and explore how leaders can make better strategic decisions under uncertainty.

Norman explains why conventional alignment makes organisations fragile, why strategic adaptability depends on coherence, and how low-regret bets create resilience without wasting effort. From complexity and culture to leadership ego and strategic ambiguity, this is a grounded take on how to think, plan, and act when nothing is certain.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why efficiency is fragile and redundancy builds resilience
• Coherence vs alignment—and why it matters for viability
• Scenario thinking and low-regret bets
• The role of purpose and culture in strategic adaptability
• Strategy as continuous learning, not annual ritual
• Why humility and decentralisation are strategic strengths

📘 Learn more about Norman’s work: https://www.drnormanchorn.com/

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, uncertainty, scenario planning, coherence, resilience, complexity, strategic alignment, futures, leadership, organisational design

📘 Learn more about Norman’s work: [Insert link to Norman’s website or LinkedIn]

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

We don’t just fight wars with weapons, we fight them with ideas, metaphors, and assumptions we don’t even question.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Ben Zweibelson—veteran, military strategist, and author of Reconceptualizing War—to explore why our dominant paradigms of strategy are failing us. They unpack the hidden structures behind military thinking, why complexity demands more than doctrine, and how multi-paradigm design can unlock radically different ways of seeing and acting.

This is not just about warfare. It’s a challenge to how we think, how we plan, and how we lead in a world that refuses to conform.

🔍 In this episode:

Why most strategy is trapped in a single paradigm

The difference between functionalism, complexity, and interpretivism

How militaries (and organisations) mistake activity for understanding

Why the irreversibility of time matters for decision-making

What multi-paradigm thinking looks like in practice

How language, design, and philosophy shape strategic failure or success

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, military thinking, complexity, war, paradigms, decision-making, design, multi-paradigm, functionalism, interpretivism, uncertainty

📘 Learn more about Ben’s work: https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/reconceptualizing-war-.php

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Control is comforting, but in complexity, it’s often a trap.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Michael Negendahl, founder of Exaptive Labs and a former emergency nurse, to explore why many leadership responses are performative rather than practical. They unpack the psychological need for certainty, the danger of chasing tidy plans in messy environments, and the difference between solving a problem and solving the wrong one.

This is a candid conversation about power, ego, and the courage to admit we don’t know. For leaders navigating real-world uncertainty, this one goes deep.

🔍 In this episode:

Why control is often just a performance

How strategy becomes theatre when leaders avoid discomfort

The gap between perception and reality in problem-solving

The difference between control and the illusion of control

What distributed intelligence looks like in practice

Why proximity to the customer changes everything

🎧 Keywords: Leadership, complexity, risk, control, decision-making, distributed intelligence, strategy, systems thinking, safety, problem-solving

📘 Learn more about Michael’s work: https://www.exaptivelabs.com/aboutus

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Innovation isn’t a brainstorm. It’s a way of thinking, organising, and acting in uncertainty.

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones sits down with Paul Frobisher—engineer, strategist, and founder of Strategic Innovation—to explore how organisations often misdiagnose the innovation challenge. From solving the wrong problems to collapsing under performance pressure, Paul breaks down the real reasons innovation fails—and what leaders can do instead.

They explore the value of TRIZ and IDEF0, the emotional cost of failed innovation, and how to build innovation systems that work over time—not just on slides. With insight from automotive and energy disruption, this is a sharp look at how to think better, decide better, and act with intent.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why most innovation fails before it starts
• How to solve the right problem—not just move fast
• Using TRIZ, IDEF0 and models to design innovation processes
• The emotional and political side of innovation
• Hydrogen, EVs, and the long game of disruption
• Why innovation isn’t about creativity—it’s about clarity

🎧 Keywords: Innovation, TRIZ, IDEF0, uncertainty, strategy, engineering, EV disruption, hydrogen, decision-making, organisational design

📘 Learn more about Paul’s work: https://strategic-innovation.co.uk/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if the most powerful lever in strategy isn’t action—but orientation?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Mark McGrath—Marine veteran, strategist, and expert in John Boyd’s OODA loop—to unpack how orientation drives adaptation, shapes perception, and rewires how organisations respond to disruption.

Mark takes us deep into Boyd’s legacy, revealing why strategy is less about linear plans and more about continuous learning, destruction and creation, and evolving faster than the environment. From Wall Street trading floors to boardroom transformation, this episode is a masterclass in fighting inertia, rethinking time, and breaking free from the guardians of decay.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why orientation—not action—is the true source of advantage
• How destruction and creation enable real adaptation
• Understanding time, tempo, and disruption
• What it means to lead with curiosity and humility
• Why small shifts create exponential effects
• How to challenge entrenched assumptions and power

🎧 Keywords: OODA loop, John Boyd, strategy, orientation, disruption, decision-making, leadership, complexity, learning, strategic advantage

📘 Learn more from Mark at: https://substack.com/@markjmcgrath

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Design thinking isn’t just for product teams—it can reshape how we do strategy.

In this episode, Mike Jones is joined by Leanne Sobel—Director of Strategic Design at Snowmelt and author of a recent PhD on the intersection of design and strategy. Together, they explore what it means to bring design into strategic work: not just as a toolkit, but as an ethos of participation, reflection, and experimentation.

Leanne shares how traditional strategy often limits possibility through early assumptions—while design opens up space to sense, test, and adapt. From stakeholder engagement to making strategy usable in practice, this episode reframes how strategy can be done in complex environments.

🔍 In this episode:

• How design challenges traditional strategy models
• Building usable strategies—not just presentations
• Why stakeholder inclusion is a risk-reducer, not a slowdown
• The difference between design thinking and design practice
• Why reflection is a core strategic act
• Creating feedback loops to make strategy adaptive

📘 Learn more about Leanne: https://www.snowmelt.io/team-members/leanne-sobel
🎧 Full podcast + notes: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality
🎙 Listen on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube

Keywords: Strategic Design, Design Thinking, Organisational Strategy, Adaptive Strategy, Design-Led Change, Stakeholder Engagement, Strategic Practice, Leadership, Systems Thinking, Complexity

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if the real barrier to change isn’t resistance—but the stories leaders tell themselves to avoid doing the work?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Steve Hearsum—consultant, coach, and author of No Silver Bullet—to unpack the deep disconnect between strategy, leadership, and organisational change.

This isn’t about frameworks or toolkits. It’s about the mess, the uncertainty, and the anxiety that real change creates—and what happens when leaders fall back on control, comms theatre, and performative fixes.

Steve brings sharp insight into why so many change efforts fail to stick, the myths that keep organisations stuck, and the work needed to build capability, coherence and culture from the inside out.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why leadership development often misses the point
• The gap between strategy and actual change
• How anxiety and fragility show up in executive behaviour
• Why clarity is useful—but coherence is critical
• The danger of “burning platform” narratives
• What it really means to build organisational capability
• Why communication isn’t the problem—it’s the shortcut

🎧 Keywords: organisational change, leadership, capability, strategy execution, culture, complexity, communication, change management, OD, Steve Hearsum

📘 Read No Silver Bullet: Bursting the Bubble of the Organisational Quick Fix: https://amzn.eu/d/bUXQWSn
 

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if strategy wasn’t a closed-door ritual—but a way to build commitment from those who deliver it?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Julia Hautz—Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Innsbruck and co-author of Open Strategy—to explore what really happens when leaders invite participation into the strategy process.

This isn’t about consensus. And it’s not about giving everyone a vote. It’s about designing strategy so it’s recognised, understood, and owned by the people closest to reality.

Julia shares insights from years of research and organisational engagement, unpacking the myths, the structural discipline, and the leadership mindset required to make openness work. From crisis response to long-term strategy shaping, she lays out why open strategy isn’t soft—it’s a strategic advantage when done well.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why open strategy isn’t democracy—and why that matters
• How participation creates psychological ownership and commitment
• The risk of surface-level engagement and ‘black box’ decisions
• What leaders fear about openness—and how to manage it
• How to create structure without killing initiative
• Why “just involving people” usually backfires
• The power of openness in times of crisis

🎧 Keywords: open strategy, strategic participation, leadership, decision-making, legitimacy, organisational culture, strategy execution, transparency, inclusion, commitment, strategy process

📘 Learn more in Julia’s book Open Strategy (co-authored with Christian Stadler, Kurt Matzler and Stephan Friedrich von den Eichen) https://amzn.eu/d/8RpROIT

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

What if AI isn’t the answer—but a way to ask better questions?

In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Matt Mullan—strategist, technologist, and co-creator of the H-Scan11 newsletter—to explore how leaders can engage with the future in a more intelligent, imaginative, and grounded way.

This isn’t another hype piece about AI. It’s a challenge to the illusion of certainty that dominates leadership today. From human-machine teaming to building AI literacy, Matt lays out a compelling case for why the future isn’t something to predict—it’s something we actively shape.

Drawing on his work at the intersection of AI and strategic foresight, Matt shares why decision-making is stuck in the past, how to spot the weak signals of disruption, and why emotional engagement—not data alone—is critical for leadership.

🔍 In this episode:

• Futures thinking vs. strategic foresight—what’s the difference?
• Why AI is a force multiplier, not a crystal ball
• Building futures literacy across teams—not just execs
• The danger of chasing perceived certainty
• How constraints fuel innovation
• Why strategy needs imagination—not just information

🎧 Keywords: AI, foresight, futures thinking, imagination, uncertainty, leadership, decision-making, scenario planning, strategic foresight, organisational capacity

📬 Explore Matt’s and David Sloly thinking in H-Scan11: https://hscan11.substack.com/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/