The Age of Outsourced Discernment
AI can recognize a pattern. It can optimize a path. It can accelerate execution. But what it cannot do (and what we’ve quietly stopped doing) is wrestle with whether the path was worth taking. We aren't failing because we lack tools; we're failing because we've tried to outsource the hardest part of leadership: Discernment.
Why Marketing Strategy Usually Isn’t Strategy
A content calendar is not a strategy. An attribution model is not a strategy. SEO is not a strategy. Most marketing departments are just very good at optimizing a machine that was built on a wish instead of a choice. If you can’t name the tradeoff your marketing is making, you don’t have a strategy, you have a schedule.
That’s Not a Strategy. It’s a Wish.
Growth is not a strategy. Revenue targets are not a strategy. Market leadership is not a strategy. Most 'strategic plans' are just a collection of wishes that avoid the one thing real strategy requires: a painful tradeoff. If your decision doesn’t involve a meaningful sacrifice, it isn’t strategy, it’s just aspiration.