05/29/2026
Most ex*****on breakdowns don’t announce themselves.
They don’t show up as a wrong strategy or a missed deadline. They start in the quiet moment when someone assumes the message landed, when in reality, it only partially did.
In our work building strategic playbooks, we’ve seen this firsthand. Through both failures and successes we’ve learned that strategy doesn’t fall apart in the thinking. It gets lost in the handoff and in the absence of consistent follow-up.
Here’s how it usually goes: a direction gets shared, a plan gets outlined, the room feels aligned.
And then everyone leaves that “same” conversation… and moves in slightly different directions.
Like a subway car full of people: getting to work begins, but each person is getting off at their own stop.
The gap between what leaders intend and what teams carry forward is rarely about effort and it’s almost never about strategy. It’s about shared understanding, navigable direction and follow up.
Momentum doesn’t build from a single conversation or group email. It gains traction by how work is handed off, how ownership is defined, and how consistently it’s followed up on.
Ex*****on has to be reinforced, revisited, and checked. Because it doesn’t break down in big moments or through mass exodus. It breaks down in the space between people getting off the train at different stops.
*****on
