Strategic Doing
AI has read every book on swimming, but it’s never been wet
The old way is dead. We just don’t have time for it anymore.
You know the routine I’m talking about. The classic corporate linear progression: First, we take January to think and create a Strategy. Then, based on that strategy, we take February to create a Plan. Finally, in March, we go and implement the plan.
In the current environment, that model is obsolete.
Everything is accelerating. The capabilities of AI and the tools at our disposal are moving at such a velocity that if you pause for two months to “strategise”, the world has already moved on by the time you start executing.
We have entered the era of Strategic Doing.
This is where we merge strategy, planning, and execution into one simultaneous phase. We have to be doing everything at warp speed now. We are building the plane while flying it, because the tools allow us to.
But there is a danger here.
AI is a momentum machine. It creates velocity effortlessly. It can write the code, draft the contract, and generate the marketing strategy in seconds. But it lacks intent. If you don’t steer it, it will happily hallucinate a destination for you, or just drive you off a cliff at Warp 10 because that was the path of least resistance.
So, how do we weave “thinking” into a process that is moving at maximum speed?
We need a counter-balance. I call it Human Dynamic Calibration.
Whilst everything is on max speed, Star Trek style, we need to be the ones stepping back - not to stop the ship, but to keep a firm hand on the tiller. We have to ensure we are heading in a desirable direction, not one that has just been invented by an algorithm.
This is where the human element becomes not just useful, but essential. And I don’t mean “human” in the sense of just having a pulse. I mean Lived Experience.
There is a profound difference between Learned Experience and Lived Experience.
AI has infinite Learned Experience. It has ingested every business book, every case study, every strategy document ever written. It knows the theory of everything.
But it has zero Lived Experience.
AI can read every book on swimming, analyse the fluid dynamics of water, and recite the history of the Olympics. But it has never been wet. It doesn’t know the feeling of the water, the panic of a cramp, or the adrenaline of the race.
That Lived Experience is the only thing that allows you to look at a perfectly logical, data-backed plan generated by AI and say, “No. That won’t work. Because people don’t behave like that when they’re scared, or greedy, or excited.”
That is our role now. We are not here to churn out the work - the machines can do that. We are here to provide the wisdom that only comes from having been in the trenches.
Strategic Doing gives us the speed.
Lived Experience gives us the direction.
We don’t need to slow down. We just need to make sure we’re actually steering.