Paying attention to small things

Clayton Christensen, in How Will You Measure Your Life, makes a precise observation - Strategy is not what you declare.

It emerges from the hundred small everyday decisions you actually make - where you spend time, what you prioritise, what you let slide. The declared strategy is the plan. The emerging strategy is what your decisions reveal.

Most leaders know their declared strategy. Few pay close attention to the one that is actually emerging.

The alignment between what is stated and what is visibly being done in small everyday actions - that is what people around the leader actually read as the real strategy.

A farmer doesn't implement a fixed plan and wait for results. They read the conditions - the soil, the weather, what's changing this season versus last. They adapt which crop, which method, when to protect and when to let things run.

The work is less about execution and more about continuous, honest attention to what is actually happening and aligning with what is intended.

A leader who is not paying attention to the small things is not just missing information. They are unconsciously enacting a strategy they never chose.