Strategy Sets Direction. Guiding Principles Make It Usable.

When smart people keep reaching different answers to the same decision, the strategy isn’t specific enough to run the business.

I’ve seen this pattern over and over. Leadership agrees on the strategy. The big priorities are clear. The direction makes sense.

Then a tough choice lands with a team and alignment breaks.

There are two good options with real trade-offs. Each side can point to the strategy and justify their call. The debate goes on because the strategy describes intent, not choice.

High-level strategy needs to stay high-level. That’s what makes it understandable and sustainable. It tells people where the company is headed and what matters most.

But it doesn’t help settle day-to-day judgment calls.

People fill the gap with their own read of the strategy. Their function. Their metric. Their incentives. Their experience. All reasonable. All different.

That’s where guiding principles play a critical role.

Guiding principles put decision rules in writing. They add precision where broad priorities leave room for interpretation. They give teams a shared way to choose.

Big statements often sound clear to the authors:

• Grow profitably.

• Be customer focused.

• Move faster.

Each one can drive very different decisions depending on who is under pressure and what number they own.

Decision rules make the intent operational:

• Protect long-term customer trust over short-term margin.

• Win in one core segment before expanding.

• Decline work that breaks the operating model.

Now similar decisions get handled in similar ways across teams. Fewer escalations, less re-litigation, and more consistency.

Big strategy tells you the destination. Guiding principles tell you how to steer.