It's January! New beginnings? Ambitious plans? Giant commitments to change? They’re on everyone’s mind. Companies included—since now’s the time when glossy PowerPoint decks are so eagerly rolled out. And those PowerPoints? They’re always brimming with promise for the year ahead.

But there's a glaring disconnect between those slides (all 73 of them) and eventual success we often don’t address. Because how frequently do those meticulously crafted plans pan out? Does the new agenda account for the day-to-day running of the company? Is the plan flexible enough to handle economic curveballs? (We remember 2020, right?)

The reality is that “traditional strategy” often resembles New Year's resolutions; they’re imbued with good intentions but ultimately destined for disappointment.

In this episode of "At Work with The Ready," (new year, new podcast name!) co-hosts Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore our deep-rooted conditioning toward conventional planning methods (despite their shortcomings), share what a more complexity conscious approach to strategy looks like, and give you moves to start busting up the annual cycles of frustration, stagnancy, and finger-pointing.

Mentioned references:

• "Getting Things Done and David Allen": Brave New Work Ep. 39 with David Allen
• "90% of leaders admit strategies fail based on implementation": Closing The Gap: Designing and Delivering a Strategy That Works - The Economist's Intelligence Unit
• Essential Intent
• Japanese pancakes, straight from Sam's Instagram algorithm
• Even/overs: Brave New Work Ep. 44
• Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)
• Looping
• Red Teaming
• "Scenario planning": Brave New Work Ep. 34 with Kevin Kelly
• Adjacent possible
• Op rhythm
• "mango sorbet": Brave New Work Ep. 163 Check-In Round

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Read the book that started it all at bravenewwork.com.