There is a quiet misconception in how we think about strategy. We often assume it is built in boardrooms, shaped by frameworks, or distilled into elegant slides. In reality, strategy reveals itself in hindsight, usually through a single decisive lever that made disproportionate impact. Leverage is about creating outsized outcomes from limited input, not by brute force, but by aligning with inherent strengths. Looking at my own journey across public sector transformation, financial services, and healthcare operations, I have come to see that the most meaningful outcomes did not emerge from fixing weaknesses, but from amplifying what was already working.
Consider how most successful organizations are remembered. Netflix streaming, Tesla performance, Google’s algorithm. The narrative is never about incremental improvements across dozens of variables, but about a few sharp, differentiated strengths. The same pattern holds in execution. While leading modernization efforts involving multi-billion-dollar investments and enterprise-wide systems, the impact did not come from perfecting every process, but from identifying where operational friction met strategic opportunity. A revenue lift on a $50B base is not magic; it is leverage applied with discipline. It reflects a deliberate choice to focus on high-impact nodes rather than diffuse effort across the system.
This brings an uncomfortable truth. Fixing weaknesses is often overrated. Some weaknesses must be managed, especially when they threaten basic functionality, but most are distractions masquerading as priorities. Reversing weaknesses is expensive, uncertain, and rarely creates advantage. In practice, I have found this to be accurate. Whether integrating AI into operational workflows or scaling budgeting systems across geographies, progress accelerated not when we eliminated every inefficiency, but when we doubled down on capabilities that already had momentum. Strategy, then, is less about repair and more about selective amplification.
However, not all strengths are equal. The more valuable ones are those that differentiate. These are not always obvious, and often emerge from a combination of technical choices, process design, and institutional insight. During work on AI integration and digital transformation, the advantage was not just in adopting new tools, but in aligning them with organizational workflows and decision-making structures. This is where leverage compounds. A tool alone is efficiency; a system aligned with context becomes strategy. The difference is subtle, but economically significant.
Ultimately, durable success comes from reinforcing a system of strengths that competitors cannot easily replicate. This is less about a single breakthrough and more about a coherent set of choices that fit together over time. As I reflect on both the theory of leverage and its application at Florida State, the lesson is consistent. Strategy is not about doing more. It is about choosing where effort matters disproportionately, and having the discipline to ignore the rest. Last week, at an ELT conference, someone remarked, “we are building an airplane as we fly it.” It sounds right for the times, but it is only half the story. Airplanes do not stay aloft because they are being built mid-air; they stay aloft because the design works. Strategy is no different. You can move fast, iterate, and adapt, but unless those actions are grounded in a clear system of strengths, motion is just noise. Leverage comes not from activity, but from alignment.
