At a leadership retreat for one of East Africa’s largest manufacturing groups, I observed a striking contrast. The CEO, a numbers man to the core, proudly explained his five-year strategic plan, full of complex Excel forecasts and market penetration assumptions.
Midway through his PowerPoint, the Chair interrupted: “This sounds impressive. But tell me, how much of this is chess, and how much is dice?” The room went silent. You could even hear a pin drop. That question deserves to haunt every boardroom.
Too many leaders confuse structured execution with strategic thought. They roll the dice, hoping for luck in forex rates, regulatory mercy, or a competitor’s misstep, and label it strategy.
But real strategy is a chessboard: governed by logic, constrained by rules, and won by foresight, not faith.
In the manufacturing sector, luck-based planning shows up as capex without customer insight, pricing models detached from input volatility, or geographic expansion into regions with weak logistics. One client spent $4M on automated lines expecting demand that never came. Why? Because they planned like dice-throwers, not chess players.
Real strategy starts with clarity before motion:
- Define your control variables. What do you truly influence (e.g., pricing, raw material contracts, distribution partnerships)?
- Map the game. Who are your five biggest threats? What assumptions must be true for your strategy to win?
- Assign moves. Like a chessboard, every player must know what decisions they own.
When I engage boards during retreats, I take them through what I call the 3-Board Rule. It dismantles the illusion of control and forces clarity before motion.
Here is Mr. Strategy’s 3-Board Rule that makes Strategy tangible
For every strategic discussion, use three visual boards:
- Board 1: What We Control. This includes decisions, assets, processes, and behaviors we directly influence–pricing, procurement terms, workforce structure, or brand positioning. It is your chessboard. You can move here without asking for permission.
- Board 2: What We Influence. These are areas where we cannot dictate the outcome but can shape the environment–customer perception, distributor loyalty, supplier reliability, and regulator trust. Influence means you are in the game, but not alone.
- Board 3: What We Must Adapt To. This is the world of dice: exchange rates, global commodity prices, competitor actions, and political shifts. Boards often waste time and emotional energy pretending to control this domain. You do not win here. You only adapt faster than others.
Once these boards are up, strategy becomes sharper. Resources move to Board 1, partnerships are optimized for Board 2, and resilience planning dominates Board 3.
The moment a board mistakes Board 3 for Board 1, disaster follows. When everything feels urgent, nothing is truly strategic.
The 3-Board Strategy Map
Use it at your next board retreat. Take a blank wall. Map each assumption or initiative to one of the three boards. Then ask:
- Are we spending 80 per cent of our time on what we control or what we are praying about?
- Are we building capacity to win, or rehearsing excuses?
Strategy is not about predicting the dice. It is about owning the chessboard.
If your plan is built mostly on Board 3, you are not a strategist. You are a gambler.
And boards should not bet the factory on dice.
I remain, Mr. Strategy
Do you need a strategy expert to support your next strategy execution? Mr. Strategy is the answer. We offer virtual and in-person strategy execution support at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time strategy officer.
Make me your strategy expert on call. I work with busy CEOs, boards, and EXCO teams to cascade strategy with precision, create clarity at every level, and win in execution.
Ideal for companies that want a top-rated strategist without the burden of in-house overhead.
