The laser pointer is vibrating in the CEO’s hand, a tiny, frantic red dot dancing across a bar chart that promises a 133% increase in ‘ecosystem synergy’ by the year 2033. I can smell the recycled air of the boardroom, a mix of expensive cologne and the faint, ozone scent of a projector bulb pushed to its absolute limit. My left thumb has been twitching for the last 43 minutes. Last night, I googled the symptom, and the results fluctuated between ‘minor dehydration’ and ‘imminent neurological collapse,’ which, coincidentally, is exactly how the company’s Q1 strategy feels when you look at it under the harsh light of a Tuesday morning.

We are currently on slide 53. The document is titled ‘Vision 2033: A Roadmap to Dominance,’ but everyone in the room knows the truth. Yet, we sit here. We nod. We pretend the universe is a series of predictable levers and pulleys because the alternative-admitting that we are all just drifting on a chaotic sea-is far too terrifying for the shareholders to digest.

The Ritual of Augury

Zephyr J.-C., a man who made his living as a high-end hotel mystery shopper before the industry decided that ‘automated feedback loops’ were cheaper than human intuition, once told me about the ‘Grand Strategic Alignment’ of a luxury chain he frequented. They had spent 23 months developing a protocol for ‘Anticipatory Guest Delight.’ It was a 303-page manual detailing exactly how a bellhop should tilt his head when greeting a Tier-3 loyalty member. Zephyr arrived at their flagship property in Zurich, his suitcase leaking a bottle of overpriced scotch he’d broken in transit. The staff, so paralyzed by the need to follow the ‘Strategic Protocol,’ spent 13 minutes debating which form to fill out for a ‘liquid incident’ rather than simply handing him a towel. The plan was perfect; the reality was a puddle of 12-year-old single malt on a marble floor.

This is the fundamental friction of the modern strategic plan. It isn’t actually a plan for action; it is a ritual of corporate augury. In ancient Rome, priests would examine the entrails of a sacrificed bird to predict the outcome of a battle. Today, we examine the entrails of an Excel spreadsheet. We look for patterns in the noise, hoping that if we format the cells beautifully enough, the future will feel obligated to obey them. It’s a performance of control. We spend months on these 5-year plans because they provide a sedative effect. If we have a map, we can’t be lost, even if the map is of a country that doesn’t exist and the ink is still wet.

The document is the placebo we swallow to ignore the headache of uncertainty.

🔑

Utility vs. Vision

I remember a specific meeting in 2023 where the ‘Digital Transformation Lead’ insisted that by 2025, physical retail would be a ‘legacy concept’ used only for ‘experiential branding.’ He had 33 slides dedicated to VR shopping goggles. Fast forward to today, and people are more desperate than ever for something they can actually touch, for a service that actually shows up on time, and for a human being who can solve a problem without a script. The grand vision ignored the most basic human impulse: the need for immediate, reliable utility. When your phone screen shatters or your washing machine decides to flood the kitchen, you don’t want a ‘synergistic paradigm.’ You want a replacement, and you want it delivered before the water reaches the carpet.

This is where the ‘Strategic Plan’ fails most spectacularly. It focuses on the ‘What If’ while ignoring the ‘What Is.’ There is a certain honesty in businesses that bypass the 83-slide rituals and focus instead on the logistics of the present. They understand that the most ‘revolutionary’ thing you can do is actually fulfill a promise. While the corporate giants are busy debating their 2033 milestones, places like Bomba.md are operating in the real world, dealing with the tangible needs of people who need technology that works right now. There is no room for ghost-planning when a customer is waiting for a delivery. The ‘Strategic Plan’ says we will own the market in a decade; the reality says we need to get this specific device to this specific doorstep by 3 p.m.

The Darkness of Design

I find myself drifting back to Zephyr J.-C. He once spent 3 nights in a hotel that had won an award for ‘Best Conceptual Design.’ The lobby was a masterpiece of glass and light, designed to evoke the feeling of ‘floating in a digital cloud.’ But Zephyr couldn’t find the light switch in his room. It was hidden behind a touch-sensitive panel that required a 4-digit code found only in the digital ‘Welcome Packet.’ He spent 23 minutes sitting in total darkness, staring at the glow of his own watch, wondering how many millions were spent on the ‘Strategic Lighting Concept’ while forgetting the basic human desire to not trip over a luggage rack.

We are addicted to the ‘Grand Gesture’ of planning because it feels like work. It feels significant. Writing a 5-year plan involves 13 committees, 3 off-site retreats, and at least 83 pots of artisanal coffee. It is a visible, measurable output. Actually fixing the broken ‘Contact Us’ form on the website, however, takes one developer about 43 minutes and provides no opportunity for a celebratory PowerPoint. We prioritize the performance over the plumbing, and then we act surprised when the pipes burst in February.

The March Pivot and The Grief of Futility

My thumb is still twitching. I should probably drink some water, but the meeting is moving into the ‘Global Scaling’ phase. The CFO is talking about ‘leveraging local synergies’ in markets we haven’t even entered yet. I think about my own life. If I had a 5-year plan for myself back in 2013, it certainly didn’t include sitting in this specific chair, listening to a man explain a hockey-stick graph that looks like it was drawn by a toddler with a ruler. My personal 5-year plan back then involved becoming a professional cellist or perhaps moving to a small village in France. Instead, I’m an expert at pretending to understand what ‘disruptive agility’ means in the context of a mid-sized insurance firm.

There is a peculiar kind of grief that comes with the ‘March Pivot.’ That’s the moment, usually about 63 days into the new year, when the 80-slide deck is quietly moved into a folder labeled ‘Archive_Old’ and everyone starts panicking because a new regulation or a new technology has rendered the ‘Vision’ obsolete. We don’t mourn the plan, though. We just start planning the ‘Correction Strategy.’ It’s a recursive loop of futility. We are like the gardeners who spend all winter drawing elaborate diagrams of where the roses will go, only to realize in spring that the soil is actually 93% clay and nothing will grow there but weeds.

The Contrarian Path

Perhaps the most contrarian thing a leader could do is stand up in January and say: ‘We have no idea what the world will look like in 12 months. Therefore, we are going to focus on being very, very good at reacting to things as they happen.’ But that doesn’t sell. It doesn’t reassure the investors who want to believe they are buying into a predictable machine. So, we continue the charade. We build the 83-slide ghosts and we pray that the ghosts will somehow scare away the reality of a chaotic market.

Zephyr J.-C. eventually quit the mystery shopping business. He told me the disconnect between the ‘Corporate Vision’ and the ‘Guest Experience’ became too depressing to document. He spent his final assignment in a resort that had a ‘Strategy for Sustainable Harmony.’ The resort was beautiful, but the staff were so stressed out by their ‘Harmony Performance Metrics’ that they were snapping at guests. He checked out 3 days early. He realized that the only thing that actually matters-the only ‘strategy’ that survives-is the ability to be present and useful in the moment.

The End of the Illusion

As the CEO finally clicks to the ‘Thank You’ slide (which features a stock photo of two people shaking hands in front of a sunset), I realize my thumb has stopped twitching. Maybe I didn’t have a neurological collapse after all. Maybe it was just the stress of trying to map out 2033 while I’m not even sure what I’m having for dinner tonight. We stand up, we applaud the ghost, and then we walk out of the room to go fix the actual problems that the plan didn’t see coming. We go back to the reality of logistics, of customer complaints, and of the 33 unread emails that appeared while we were busy looking at the future. The plan is dead. Long live the work.