Liz and Marco talk with Evan Campbell about how strategy breaks down inside organizations long before execution begins. Evan shares how his background in the military, technology, and consulting led him to focus on the gap between strategic intent and what gets funded, communicated, and delivered. They dig into strategy decay, organizational coherence, and why a B-level strategy with A-level execution often beats the reverse. The conversation also covers OKRs, lean portfolio management, leadership accountability, and how executives can test whether strategy has truly landed.
More About Evan:
https://www.chinookranch.com/founder.html
Episode chapters
- 01:10 – Evan’s path from Special Forces to software, startups, and consulting
- 03:59 – How the book came together from blog posts into Adapt to Win
- 06:10 – Why the portfolio of initiatives reveals the real strategy
- 07:38 – What strategy decay means and why it spreads through organizations
- 09:25 – Why leaders have to fight noise, inertia, and organizational drift
- 11:12 – The danger of shiny new executive priorities with no clear “why”
- 13:06 – Commander’s intent versus micromanagement and rigid task lists
- 15:33 – Why CEOs and strategy officers often discover years of stalled progress
- 16:52 – The three strategy subprocesses: development, deployment, execution
- 18:46 – Why accountability for execution cannot stop at the strategy office
- 19:49 – Why the CEO is ultimately responsible for making strategy happen
- 21:35 – Why A-level execution beats A-level strategy with weak execution
- 22:28 – Strategy as a hypothesis, with feedback loops driving learning
- 23:33 – Gemba thinking and the gap between executive strategy and real operations
- 24:46 – Organizational coherence across strategy, business model, and operating model
- 26:42 – Too much work in progress makes strategy decay worse
- 28:06 – Hidden disagreement in the boardroom beneath surface alignment
- 29:41 – Ambition, risk, and whether a strategy is actually executable
- 31:10 – Why strategic adaptability starts with basic execution discipline
- 32:18 – How leaders should quickly adjust strategy when conditions change
- 33:44 – Using pulse surveys and quick conversations to test strategy deployment
- 34:47 – The questions every executive should ask: where do we play, how do we win
- 36:32 – Why the funding portfolio tells you what the organization is really building
- 37:59 – Public versus private companies and the wide range of strategy maturity
- 41:35 – Where to find Adapt to Win and Evan’s consulting work
Listen to the episode: Adapt to Win: Why Strategy Decays and How to Fix It with Evan Campbell on Libsyn
Want help applying these ideas in your organization? Contact Work Stream Consulting.
