Strategy Acceleration: How to Move from Thinking to Doing

Most people treat strategy like a noun.
It’s a document.
It’s a plan.
It’s something you make once a year, print out, and file away until the next offsite.

But here’s the shift I want to make:

👉 Strategy isn’t a noun. Strategy is a verb.

It’s not what you say.
It’s what you do.
It lives in choices, actions, and behaviors—not just in PowerPoint slides.

This mindset is what I call the Strategy Acceleration System.
It’s not just a course framework.
It’s a philosophy for how strategy comes to life—every single day.

Let me walk you through it.

The next Strategy Accelerator cohort begins May 19. Enrollment is closing soon.

Click here to secure your seat.

🧠 1. Strategic Thinking: Thinking That Leads to Action

We start with the mental work.
But it’s not abstract. It’s not theoretical.

Strategic thinking is the ability to separate signal from noise. To ask:
→ What’s truly strategic here?
→ What gives us leverage?
→ What will compound over time?

And because business is a continuous game—with no final buzzer or halftime break—we don’t just need to think about advantage for the destination.

We need to build advantage for the journey and the destination.

This is where I bring in the Eight Powers framework—eight distinct ways to create enduring competitive advantage, from proprietary knowledge to network effects. Strategic thinking means we consciously build toward these levers—not by accident, but by design.

📋 2. Strategic Planning: Activating the Strategy

Here’s where most companies go wrong.

They create a strategy, then jump straight into initiatives:
➡️ “Let’s launch a new platform.”
➡️ “Let’s roll out a new training program.”
➡️ “Let’s implement a new tool.”

But they skip the behavioral layer.
They fail to apply the Rule of Flow.
They forget that strategy fails or succeeds through people.

That means we need to ask:
✔️ What behaviors need to shift?
✔️ What decisions are being made that work against the strategy?
✔️ What do we need to stop doing to make space for the new?

This isn’t just planning—it’s behavioral design.
We’re not just launching initiatives.
We’re designing an environment where the right actions become easier, more natural, more habitual.

That’s where strategy truly takes root.

🔁 3. Strategic Doing: Managing Strategy in Real Time

If strategic planning is the launch, strategic doing is the orbit correction.

It’s how we course-correct when the world throws curveballs.
It’s how we ask, every week, every month:
→ Now that we know what we know, what should we do differently?

And here’s the hidden power of strategic doing:
We can design actions that generate new data so that we can generate new insights.
Instead of waiting for certainty, we create it.
We build experiments into our strategy that help us learn, iterate, and evolve faster.

This is how strategy stops being static.
And starts becoming adaptive, alive, and evidence-based.

🧭 In the Middle: Strategy Facilitation

Now, here's the big shift.

In the old model, the strategist is the expert.
They drop in, write the plan, hand it off, and disappear.

But in the acceleration model, the strategist is a facilitator.
Not a formulator. A guide. A catalyst.

Why?

Because strategy that’s co-created is strategy that sticks.

When a team builds their strategy together—when they wrestle with tradeoffs, align on direction, and name their priorities—it doesn’t need buy-in later.
Buy-in is baked in.

This facilitative approach is what underpins the entire Strategy Accelerator.
It’s not about giving you the answers.
It’s about helping you ask better questions—so you can build strategy from within.

💡 Why This Matters

We don’t need more binders.
We don’t need more initiative overload.
We don’t need a dozen half-baked efforts competing for attention.

We need strategy that flows.
That integrates thinking and doing.
That turns insight into behavior.
And that recognizes: the real work of strategy happens between the meetings.

That’s what the Strategy Acceleration System is all about.

It’s not just a framework. It’s a new operating system for strategic leaders.

🎯 Coming Up Next

In the next few editions, I’ll break down each part of the Strategy Accelerator in detail, starting with:

→ How to spot the difference between strategic and tactical thinking
→ How to design strategy for flow, not friction
→ And why “less but better” is the key to execution velocity

Until then, ask yourself:

Is your strategy a verb—or just a noun?
Is it being acted on daily—or sitting on a shelf?

Let’s accelerate.

—
Alex Nesbitt
Founder, Strategy Academy
Helping founders stop spinning—and start scaling.

P.S. When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

(1) Contact me for 1:1 CEO coaching and advisory services

(2) Apply to the Strategy Accelerator program for leaders and strategic professionals who want to master strategy in action. Don't miss the enrollment deadline - May 19, 2025

(3) Join my introduction to strategic thinking masterclass: Strategic Thinking For Advantage – A training program for aspiring leaders ready to turn strategic thinking into a superpower.