Strategy Meets Reality Podcast
Strategy Meets Reality Podcast
Podcast Description
Traditional strategy is broken.The world is complex, unpredictable, and constantly shifting—yet most strategy still relies on outdated assumptions of control, certainty, and linear plans.Strategy Meets Reality is a podcast for leaders who know that theory alone doesn’t cut it.Hosted by Mike Jones, organisational psychologist and systems thinker, this show features honest, unfiltered conversations with leaders, strategists, and practitioners who’ve had to live with the consequences of strategy.We go beyond frameworks to explore what it really takes to make strategy work in the real world—where trade-offs are messy, power dynamics matter, and complexity won’t go away.No jargon. No fluff. Just real insight into how strategy and execution actually happen.🎧 New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe and rethink your strategy.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast delves into various aspects of strategic thinking and execution, emphasizing complexity and adaptability. Episodes feature topics like the influence of power dynamics in strategy, the importance of mental models in decision-making, and how to construct deliberately adaptive organizations. For instance, episodes cover frameworks such as the OODA loop with insights from military strategist Chet Richards and methods for navigating organizational change with Mike Burrows.
Traditional strategy is broken.
The world is complex, unpredictable, and constantly shifting—yet most strategy still relies on outdated assumptions of control, certainty, and linear plans.
Strategy Meets Reality is a podcast for leaders who know that theory alone doesn’t cut it.
Hosted by Mike Jones, organisational psychologist and systems thinker, this show features honest, unfiltered conversations with leaders, strategists, and practitioners who’ve had to live with the consequences of strategy.
We go beyond frameworks to explore what it really takes to make strategy work in the real world—where trade-offs are messy, power dynamics matter, and complexity won’t go away.
No jargon. No fluff. Just real insight into how strategy and execution actually happen.
🎧 New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe and rethink your strategy.
If your organisation keeps saying ”we need to be more innovative” while doing everything possible to crush experimentation, this conversation is for you. I'm joined by Robyn Bolton, founder and Chief Navigator at MileZero, to get brutally practical about what it takes to turn a growth strategy into results when uncertainty, incentives and internal politics get in the way.
We explore the core tension leaders face: most people rise by mastering operating excellence in a high-knowledge environment, then get asked to deliver innovation in a low-knowledge, high-assumption world. Robyn lays out a simple, disciplined alternative to big-bang roll-outs: apply the scientific method, break work into assumptions, write hypotheses, and run quick tests starting with the deal killers. Along the way, we unpack why moving fast in the wrong direction is worse than moving slowly in the right one, plus a memorable McDonald's shrimp salad story that shows what happens when nobody checks the maths early.
We also tackle why innovation is rarely an ideas problem. It's a leadership problem and an organisational design problem: governance that rewards wordy papers over learning, incentives tied to the quarter, and corporate antibodies that swarm anything new. We discuss why ”lean is the enemy of learning” can be true in exploration, how to define a clear growth gap that forces focus, why portfolios beat single heroic bets, and how to treat AI as a tool rather than a strategy fad.
If you want innovation strategy, growth strategy and corporate innovation to survive contact with reality, subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more leaders find the practical playbook.
Find Robyn's work here:
https://www.unlockinginnovation.co
Enjoying the show?
Subscribe and leave a review on your favourite platform — it helps more people find the podcast.
🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast
📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality
Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/
Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
For a complete disclaimer, please see our Full Disclaimer on the archive page. The Podcast Collaborative bears no responsibility for the podcast’s themes, language, or overall content. Listener discretion is advised. Read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more details.