9 January, 2026
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” Peter Drucker. Reflecting on Peter Drucker’s quote, I have never been a fan of strategy maps as they rely on outdated logic that is not suited to today’s strategic challenges.
This perspective is grounded in my past consulting experience, not theory. I began my strategy management career in the early days of digitalization, when IT departments were marginalized and treated as support functions, before becoming core strategic functions in many organizations, capable of dealing with the fast changing nature of business today.
Below, I summarized four reasons why I think strategy maps have become ineffective in a VUCA world, one that demands speed, adaptability, and continuous responsiveness to market change:
- Strategy is not static: Markets quickly move, technology evolves, regulations shift, and competitors act faster than business planning cycles. Strategy maps freeze strategy into a snapshot, creating a false sense of stability in a world that is constantly changing.
- Fixed perspectives don’t reflect reality: Strategy cannot be neatly squeezed into four – six perspectives. Doing so consumes time and effort, creates artificial trade-offs, and limits flexibility when organizations need room to adapt to external changes.
- Execution is not linear: Strategy does not unfold in linear cause-and-effect chains. It is iterative, messy, and shaped by constant feedback. Strategy maps assume predictability, which is impossible in reality.
- Strategy Maps focus too much on the inside: Strategy maps prioritize internal measures while ignoring external signals such as customers, competitors, technology, and ecosystems. This inward focus risks optimizing the organization while the market moves on.
In conclusion, Strategy Maps were designed for a more stable era. Today’s environment demands agility, sensing, and rapid course correction to avoid strategic drifting. Strategy should be treated as a living system, not a static diagram that offers comfort but limits progress.
