In short, what to bring to the office:
- Time as a strategic variable: be sure to consider time as a key resource in strategic planning to avoid damaging the effectiveness of decisions.
- The 3 T’s of strategy: apply theory, time and target as essential pillars for structuring a solid and focused strategy.
- Clear numerical goals: define specific metrics to guide each strategic decision and measure progress.
- Time compression and decision-making: develop a decision-making process that is quick but aligned with your business vision.
- Outcome-driven mentality: shifts focus from tasks to concrete results, tying them to precise timelines to optimize resources.
- Strategy Focus Onepager: uses tools such as SFO to plan for long-term decisions, starting with goals and building the road to achieve them.
Whenever I write a task in the system that manages the activities of STRTGY this small indicator, among the many available, is perhaps one of the most useful.
Indicates the progression percentage of the year, in which this task is to be performed.
In this article I want to explain why the concept of time is a vital concept of business strategy and yet it is so undervalued that it damages the strategy itself.
The 3 Ts of Strategy
In the world of strategy, we too often focus on details that seem sophisticated but actually distract attention from what really matters. Any good strategy must have these 3 elements to be considered such. Everything else is incidental.
Theory: your model for winning
Theory is the mechanism that explains how your organization sustainably creates value. It is not just about knowing what you do, but understanding how and why it works, so that you can accurately predict the impact of your choices. A well-built model is an integrated system in which each element feeds into the next, creating a virtuous cycle of predictable results.
This model must be stable enough not to depend solely on the latest technology or market fad. When you have a clear and robust model, you can not only explain your past success but also anticipate your future success, increasing the predictability of outcomes and reducing the risk of decisions based on instinct or unverified hunches.
In MAKE PROGRESS® Theory is described by the Growth Machine.
Time: the invisible enemy
It is common for strategies to fail not because they are wrong, but because they ignore this variable.
And that is why I am writing this article.
Target: the size of ambitions
The target is not just a desire, it is the numerical translation of your ambitions. Defining a target means clarifying what the “win size” is: how many customers you want to serve, how much revenue you want to generate, what margin you want to maintain. Without numbers, you cannot know whether you are winning or losing, and decisions are likely to become random.
A well-defined target helps calibrate every strategic choice, from resources to allocate to operational priorities. Knowing where you want to go allows you to choose how much to risk, how much to invest, and when to stop and recalibrate. It’s not just about aspiring for big results, but about setting realistic metrics that steer the entire organization toward tangible victory.
The compression of time
Eric Schmidt, Former CEO of Google, often talks about a concept that every leader should strongly consider: that of time compression.
Here is a transcript of one of his interviews in which he talks about this concept.
“Having been an executive for a long time, I used to say, if we had infinite time, we would have been able to do everything right. The strategy would have been flawless, the team management perfect, every product would have been flawless, and even the marketing campaigns flawless. But the problem is that we live in a condition of time compression, and the speed at which things are developing today is accelerating it even further.”
A prime example of the need for quick decisions is the U.S. nuclear protocols. Historically, during the Cold War, the flight time of an intercontinental ballistic missile was about 30 minutes, giving the president time to assess the situation and authorize a response. With the advent of hypersonic missiles, which can strike in a matter of minutes, this time frame has been drastically reduced. Nuclear football, a black briefcase that always accompanies the president, contains the codes and procedures for authorizing a nuclear strike. However, with such short response times, even waking up the President and obtaining authorization may no longer be feasible, highlighting the challenge of making critical decisions in ever-shorter fractions of time.
“[…] Time compression involves every aspect of human decision-making and the structures we have built. We need to start talking seriously about it, because the implications are huge for our future.”
Similar to nuclear protocols, modern companies operate in an environment where decisions must be made quickly to remain competitive. Corporate leadership is often called upon to make critical choices in a short time frame with significant consequences. Without a clear strategy, this can lead to impulsive decisions that are misaligned with business objectives. It is therefore critical to have a strategic plan to serve as a guide, ensuring that quick decisions are still thoughtful and consistent with the company’s vision.
In the past, time was an ally for companies introducing new technologies: whoever arrived first could maintain a significant competitive advantage for years. Today, however, immediate access to the same technologies by competitors-often at lower cost-has drastically reduced this advantage. This phenomenon, fueled by the continuing validity of Moore’s Law, makes “time to market” and the ability to adapt quickly, crucial to success.
An emblematic example is artificial intelligence. Although it is often seen as a valuable and transformative asset, it is also the fastest depreciating human asset in history. A state-of-the-art AI model today could become obsolete in a matter of months, not only because new technologies emerge, but also because the cost of replicating or improving the performance of the segment leader plummets dramatically.
Finally, the speed with which consumer behavior changes is another critical variable. Instant access to information, products, and services has made markets incredibly fluid. What seems to be an established preference today could be overtaken tomorrow by a new trend or change in cultural values. Companies that fail to keep up with these changes and risk finding themselves irrelevant in a market that waits for no one.
Business is an endless game, but not strategy
Business is, by its very nature, an endless game. No business wants to close: the goal is always to continue to operate, grow and adapt over time.
Strategy, on the other hand, is a finite game. It is a tool that is constantly changing to respond to an evolving context. Think of a game of chess: your strategy lasts only until your opponent’s next move.
Similarly, in business, there is no one strategy that is good forever. Success comes when companies understand that business requires a long-term view, while strategy must be flexible and adapt to challenges and opportunities as they arise.
Time drives the strategy
Without taking time into consideration, any decision would be meaningless! When we plan a strategy, we don’t just want to achieve a goal “sooner or later.” We want to get there within a defined period, tending to be before resources are exhausted.
If we have an abundance of time and resources, we can afford a gradual and sustainable approach.
But when time is scarce, we must act quickly and precisely.
Strategy, then, is not only what we choose to do, but also how we decide to use our time to beat the limits imposed by resources and competition.
Resources, time and speed
The relationship between resources, time and speed is at the heart of any effective strategy. With plenty of resources and plenty of time, a company can take the luxury of going slow, focusing on quality and innovation. But when resources are scarce, speed becomes essential.
Getting to market earlier or adapting more quickly to changes can make the difference between winning and losing. However, speed without reflection can lead to costly mistakes.
True mastery lies in balancing speed and time, making quick but well-considered decisions so as to create value that stands the test of time.
The role of time in MAKE PROGRESS®
Generate momentum and sustain motivation
In MAKE PROGRESS, time plays a key role because the speed with which one makes progress is key to motivation. Generating one success after another generates that feeling of control aligned with the growth of one’s skills, which allows one to maintain focus for long periods of time.
Sporadic, random, and unpredictable successes demoralize teams, who may feel that any solution is out of their reach and consequently undermine their motivation and ability to strategize.
Sustainable growth occurs when we understand the mechanisms of success and are able to replicate them at increasing speed and effectiveness.
Making decisions of the right size
The role of time and MAKE PROGRESS is also a fundamental in decision making. When constructing the canvas, Strategy Focus Onepager (SFO), it is important to understand that there are no right or wrong decisions, there are decisions that might be of the size that is not congruent with our aspirations.
The SFO is built on a principle of reverse engineering the targets. You start with the target, of the key profit and product metrics you’ll find on the right-hand side of the canvas, and reconstruct the decisions needed to build the right-sized company for those outcomes.
Because when you want to sustain major growth, you have to take into account that the company we are building will probably be very different from the one we have now. It will change the Go to Market (GTM) strategy, it will change the product distribution, it will change the organization of the teams, it will change the way the operation will drive the activities, because the size, once we get to that level, will challenge the current processes.
That is why it is important to make decisions today to start building the company of the future while sustaining growth. The balance between business as usual and innovation becomes foundational.
Outcome-driven mentality
Keeping time in mind is important to make that paradigm shift from being task oriented to outcome driven happen correctly.
Rather than defining the tasks, let us try to define the result that these tasks should bring and relate it to the time in which these results should materialize, because one might work profoundly differently depending on the time one has available.
That’s why at STRTGY, in each task we make it clear when in the year this happens, because it has to correlate with the results we want to achieve. For example, doing a lead generation campaign on a new product at the beginning of the year, in which all the metrics start from scratch, and there is not the same pressure on targets as at the end of the year, means being able to afford to make completely different decisions and creative choices if the same task to run that campaign appeared in the last month of the year.
The time of year at which these tasks are executed, and the distance with reference targets, radically changes how they are executed themselves.
In conclusion
I invite you to stop for a moment and consider how the time dimension can affect your strategic vision. Every company, regardless of size or industry, can benefit from a greater awareness of how time affects decisions and execution.
If you would like to learn more about these concepts and find out how to apply our certified tools to your business context, I would be happy to discuss them with you in a 1:1 call.
This is an opportunity to explore together how to make your strategy more effective and aligned with the speed of the market. I look forward to turning time into your best ally.
