Serious About Strategy. Not So Serious Today
A few strategy jokes to take the edge off your week
I love cracking jokes, and whenever I come up with a good one, I jot it down and use it in my posts and articles.
Here are a few of my favorites:
– Designing a strategy with shareholder profit as the main goal is like writing a play for the actors instead of the audience.
– Building a five-year detailed strategic plan is like planning your daughter’s wedding when she’s three.
– Experienced marketers say flashy, beautiful boxes sell better if you put something inside them.
– Operational planning is planning for a quarter. Tactical planning is planning for a year. Strategic planning is defining a vision, setting bold goals, and developing audacious plans for a time when we’ll no longer even be working at the company.
– Nothing creates long-term problems quite like short-term thinking.
– Thinking you can use the same approach for different tasks is like believing you can perform eye surgery with an axe. You can’t apply the same strategic tools to different businesses.
– Start your business with me-goals, me-vision, and me-strategy, and you’ll most likely end up with you-lose. Business is hard work you do for your customers, not masturbation.
– Starting strategy development with internal analysis is like beginning product development with its packaging.
– Fixing customer problems only when they complain to tech support is like going to a marriage counselor after the divorce.
– A hockey stick in sales doesn’t always mean success. Start selling dollars for 95 cents, and your sales curve will look great too.
– "Of course, customers, employees, and the environment matter," say CEOs, "but in the end, it all comes down to profit." Bank robbers follow the same logic—they just put it more bluntly.
– Many employees fear digital transformation—but they shouldn’t. When else will they get a chance to blame all their mistakes on algorithms?
– Nothing highlights the rationality of modern entrepreneurship quite like replacing humans with artificial intelligence in support — and expecting genuine loyalty in return.
– When a CEO starts giving personal growth advice in interviews, it’s a sure sign their ivory tower is finally complete.
Want more jokes like these? Download my Strategy Quips booklet — free and no sign-up needed.
Lots of truth here.
very nice! i am always looking for disciplines where somebody has collected a body of knowledge and presents it as short stories, jokes, proverbs or other pithy sayings.