What Would Socrates Ask You About Your Business Strategy?
The One Thing You Must Never Outsource
Outsourcing strategy is like hiring a nanny to raise your child.
I once lectured on strategy for an EMBA program. One of the students said that her company – a major bank – had recently been choosing a strategy consulting firm.
“Finally, we chose the firm that will not only develop a strategy for us but also lead the resulting strategic projects. This way, they will be accountable for their advice,” she said.
I was stunned.
“Aren’t you basically outsourcing your business to this company?” I asked.
Now, it was her turn to look puzzled.
“What do guys like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, James Dyson, and Larry Ellison have in common?” I asked her.
Maieutics, or the Socratic method
There are two types of consulting:
1. A consultant offers both a solution and a method to develop it.
2. A consultant provides only a method.
Example of the first type:
A consultant understands warehouse logistics, social media, or AI better than you. They come in and build something you didn’t have—a new warehouse, a social media brand, or an AI agent.
If logistics, social media, or AI aren’t your core business, you don’t want to invest millions and years building such expertise in-house.
The consultant trains your staff, but they are still users, not developers.
Example of the second type:
A coach can’t tell you how to live or work. You must find the answers yourself. But a coach can ask the right questions—the ones that will lead you to the wise decisions.
Socrates was the first coach in human history. A humble man, he stated that he “knew nothing” and didn’t teach his followers. Instead, he asked deep questions that made people think rather than swallow answers like magic pills.
Socrates likened himself to his mother, a midwife. She helped deliver babies but did not give birth herself; in the same way, he helped “deliver” knowledge.
He called his method “Maieutics.” Today, we also call it the Socratic method.
And I believe strategy consultants should use Maieutics rather than develop strategies for their clients.
Three benefits of the Socratic method
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, James Dyson, Larry Ellison, and many other successful entrepreneurs have one thing in common—McKinsey, Bain, BCG, or Accenture didn’t help them build their empires.
And no wonder.
The business models of major consulting firms push them towards the analytical approach. For instance, McKinsey’s website reads: “Creative data mining enables us to produce privileged insights and finely calibrate strategies that we know work; these are not simply theoretical claims backed by a few cases but rather statistically valid ones based on large sample learnings from nearly 100 years of experience.”
So, they look for the future in the past and find that reliable.
That may be the best solution for some traditional industries. But you can’t come up with the iPhone, Tesla cars, oat milk, Scrub Daddy, the Stanley Quencher, or the air fryer just by digging into the data.
To create a new product or innovative business model, you need three Cs:
· Curiosity
· Creativity
· Courage
And “data mining,” even if it’s “creative,” won’t be of much help here. By contrast, the Socratic method can spark curiosity and unlock creativity.
When I help teams with strategy, we talk to customers, play ideation games, and organize foresight workshops. But while I use many tools to ignite their creativity, at my core, I am still a “midwife”—ultimately, they must “deliver” their own ideas.
That’s the first benefit of the Socratic method. The second one is strategy ownership.
– Who owns the strategy if it’s crafted by a consulting firm?
– Who actually runs the business if consultants develop the strategy and then lead execution?
A business can outsource many things, but strategy is the exception.
I never craft strategies for my clients. Instead, I help them “deliver” their own strategy by asking questions and providing frameworks.
So, they own their strategies.
And the third benefit is that when a team devises a strategy on their own, they become “developers,” not just “users.” When they need to update the plan, they can do it without my help.
Socratic strategy
I don’t sell answers. I sell Better Questions.
And it works.
I haven’t worked with giants like NVIDIA or Microsoft. But my “Socratic questions” empowered:
An industrial valve supplier to devise a new sales model.
A fastener distributor to shift from selling products to selling a service.
A niche software developer to create a product that revolutionized their market.
As I mentioned, I don’t sell answers—I sell the questions that help you find them. If you are ready to have your assumptions challenged and your creativity ignited, here is how we can work together.
Read also: The Data-Driven Delusion.
Lovely. I am a socratic mentor myself, following irony and maieutic. Very well said. Outsourcing strategy is well cited by Clayton C in How will you measure your life talking about Dell. Good job! mhf
Strong reminder that thinking can’t be delegated even if we want it to be 🙂