Every leadership team wants its strategy to succeed. Yet most don’t, not for lack of effort, but because the same failure patterns repeat.

Most strategy processes celebrate success stories instead of studying failure. But failure is the rule, not the exception and understanding where strategies break is what helps leaders make them succeed.

The Value of Failures in Strategy explores 32 recurring sources of failure across four stages of strategy:

• Problem formulation: when leaders start with vague goals instead of real issues.
• Strategy development: when ambition replaces trade-offs.
• Planning: when scope expands faster than focus.
• Execution: when alignment and momentum quietly fade.