<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none;" alt="" src="https://px.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=1110556&amp;fmt=gif">
Skip to content
    May 30, 2025

    Strategy Whiplash: Are You Chasing Squirrels or Building a Lasting Business?

    SPM Mythbusters Series

    3 min read

    Key Takeaways
    • Don't let shiny new ideas and quick fixes distract you; a true strategic focus is long-term, spanning three to five years.
    • KeyResist the urge to chase every trend; fear of missing out (FOMO) drives many bad decisions.
    • Establish strong leadership, making tough decisions based on knowledge and experience, not just data.

    How many times have you seen it happen? A CEO attends a conference, gets fired up about a new idea, and declares, "We're doing this now!"

    The team scrambles to implement the idea, only for the CEO to find the next shiny object a few months later, abandoning the first initiative before it ever had a chance.

    The strategy merry-go-round

    This constant shifting of priorities isn't strategy; it's strategy exhaustion. It's a sign of a company with people who don't understand what strategy truly means.

    The myth of constant change

    The issue is a failure to connect individual actions to a broader, strategic goal. If maximizing revenue in the U.S. becomes the sole focus for the firm, the bigger strategic picture gets lost. You need a comprehensive view, one that enables all employees to see how their efforts help achieve team objectives.

    By establishing this visibility, you are more likely to see what can be achieved, and have each member acting as a singular force. To achieve long-term business growth, ensure that every action is deliberate and make strategic choices.

    What's your enduring advantage?

    Ask yourself:

    • What business are we really in?
    • What's our unique value proposition?
    • What's our competitive advantage?

    Move from shiny object syndrome to strategic focus

    1. Document your objectives. Make sure that all of your managers, from top to bottom, can use the material and truly understand what you seek to accomplish.
    2. Make your bets clear. People can see the benefit of your bet if the organization’s goals are in clear view.
    3. Hold leaders accountable. Make no mistake: Leaders can make mistakes. They can make the wrong bets, and even be focused on the wrong races. Leaders and teams need to understand what went wrong, and communicate honestly about the lessons that can be learned.

    Don't get caught in the strategy whiplash cycle. Focus on building a lasting business, not on chasing every shiny object that comes along.

    Brian Nathanson

    Brian Nathanson is a recovering certified Project Management Professional now serving as the Head of Product Management Clarity at Broadcom. He is the host of several popular Clarity-related customer webcasts (Office Hours, Release Previews, and the End-to-End Modern UX Demos) and has conducted many hours of both...

    Other resources you might be interested in

    icon
    Video December 12, 2025

    Automic Automation Cloud Integration: SAP S/4 HANA Application Jobs Integration

    Simplify your SAP S/4HANA job management. Integrate with Automic Automation for central configuration, monitoring, and orchestration of all your enterprise jobs.

    icon
    Video December 12, 2025

    Automic Automation Cloud Integration: OpenSSH Integration

    Master Open SSH automation. Use Automic Automation for centralized control, secure file transfer, command execution, and full job monitoring.

    icon
    Blog December 10, 2025

    3 Questions I Expect You to Ask Me

    Ask these questions to gain a deeper understanding of a vendor. Find a partner who can solve today’s challenges and prepare you for what’s next.

    icon
    Solution and Capabilities Briefs December 5, 2025

    Carrier-Grade Network Observability: A Technology Brief for Telco Network Operations

    Network Observability by Broadcom unifies data to provide contextual, AI-enabled insights for superior service availability, accelerated MTTR and improved MTTI, reduced operational costs, and the...

    icon
    Office Hours December 4, 2025

    Rally Office Hours: December 4, 2025

    Get the latest Rally updates, including a new Release Tracking page, and hear Q&A on revision history reporting, custom boards, and capacity planning.

    icon
    Blog December 3, 2025

    You've Found the Waste In Your Network Operations. Now What?

    Leverage the Six Sigma framework to gain a roadmap for converting network data into permanent optimizations. Start systematically eliminating network issues.

    icon
    Course December 3, 2025

    AAI Integrations: Control-M

    This course explains how to install, configure, and secure the integration between Automation Analytics & Intelligence (AAI) and Control-M.

    icon
    Blog November 26, 2025

    The Silent Sabotage of Configuration Drift

    See how manual network changes lead to configuration drift, which can cause security holes, compliance violations, and network outages.

    icon
    Course November 25, 2025

    AAI - Configuring & Responding to Jobstream Alerts

    This course walks you through how jobstream alerts work in AAI, and how to tailor them to your workload needs.