Strategy Meets Reality Podcast

Relational Dynamics For Strategic Leaders | Dr Alice Jing Shan

Your strategy can look brilliant on paper and still be totally disconnected from reality. We talk with Dr Alice Jing Shan, who is the originator of Relational Dynamics™, the founder of ScholarLand Ltd, and an independent researcher and writer. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Edinburgh. Her work examines how human systems form, stabilise, drift, adapt, and sometimes collapse under constraint over time. Relational Dynamics™ is her original lens for understanding these system trajectories. Her work moves across complexity, language, culture, leadership, governance, strategy, risk, and AI as a condition shaping human systems. Across disciplines, scales, and narrative forms, she traces how relational dynamics shape stability, adaptation, meaning, judgment, and collapse over time. We unpack a practical distinction many organisations blur: strategy is field-level awareness, while tactics are the specific moves, who does what when. When teams obsess over competitor activity or internal productivity without tracking relationships and feedback loops, they can become “busy” while making no strategic advance. We also go deep on the variables most strategy documents ignore: constraints, tempo, and timing, not as calendar dates but as thresholds and developmental time. If the interface is missing, there is no entry, and no amount of effort turns a good idea into real impact.  Language is one of the biggest interfaces in any organisation, and AI is rapidly reshaping it. We explore why “more communication” is not the fix, how power dynamics show up between native and non-native speakers, and how large language models can produce fluent, confident text that still drifts away from intent. We finish on a question that matters to anyone using AI for strategy, analysis, or planning: are we still in relationship with reality, or are we just getting better at responding to representations of reality?  Subscribe for more conversations where strategy meets reality, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with your take on the closing question. Find Alice's work here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanjingalice/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanjingalice/] Substack: https://alicejingshan.substack.com/ [https://alicejingshan.substack.com/]  Here is one of her latest works: From AI to AIR: Augmented Intelligence Reasoning · v0.2 A reframe of the AI discourse, shifting the focus from AI as an abstract object to reasoning, relationships, and real-world conditions. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20436861 [https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20436861] Send Mike a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2466969/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast] 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality [https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality] Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/]

What is the Neurology of Business | Martin Pfiffner

Your organisation might have a polished strategy deck, a neat org chart, and a backlog full of “agile” work, yet decisions still stall and accountability still blurs. That is the gap we tackle with our guest Martin Pfiffner, author of The Neurology of Business. He identifies the missing third dimension of structure. Beyond anatomy (boxes) and physiology (process), we dig into organisational neurology, the real wiring of decision rights, control, and communication. When that wiring is unclear, work escalates, leaders overload, and you end up with what Dan Davies calls an unaccountability machine. We bring cybernetics into the boardroom without the jargon. Martin explains why communication never works perfectly, and why viable systems rely on negative feedback loops and closed-loop control to correct mistakes quickly. We connect that thinking to the Viable System Model, recursion levels, and the very practical question most organisations avoid: who steers whom, and which dimension actually leads, product, region, customer, or something else. That clarity is often the difference between moving at speed and getting stuck in endless consensus. We also challenge common strategy habits: confusing planning horizons with strategy, treating strategy as a one-off project, and ignoring constraints created by past investments and relationships. Instead, we talk about real-time strategy cycles, essential variables that simplify complexity, and how to navigate uncertainty without pretending you can predict it. We finish with a sharp warning and a hopeful path for AI. AI will not fix a broken organisation; it will accelerate it. Fix the decision and governance structure first, then use AI to strengthen organisational memory, sensing, and learning. If you find this useful, subscribe, share it with a colleague who wrestles with decision bottlenecks, and leave us a review with the one structural question your organisation needs to answer next. Find Martin's Work:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-dr-pfiffner-07534459/ His book The Neurology of Business: https://amzn.eu/d/046UympH Send Mike a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2466969/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast] 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality [https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality] Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/]

From AI Hype To Competitive Advantage And Real Change | Dr Mark Bloomfield

AI is moving fast, but the real risk is moving fast in the wrong direction. We sit down with Dr Mark Bloomfield, founder of Turbulence and a fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, to get past the hype and talk about what AI transformation looks like when strategy meets reality. If you have ever heard “we need an AI strategy” and felt the room skip the hard questions, you will recognise the boardroom tension we unpack: change management, competitive advantage, and the uncomfortable truth that with AI, there is no neat finish line.  We challenge the efficiency-first story that dominates so many generative AI rollouts. Yes, AI can cut cycle times, but we argue the bigger prize is capacity: headspace for better judgment, clearer choices, and the courage to reimagine work. Mark explains why AI is best treated as a capability, not a magic USB-C plug-in, and we explore practical uses like strategy simulation, horizon scanning, synthetic personas, and using voice agents to interrogate ideas rather than blindly accepting “synthesis”.  We also get honest about the darker edges: outsourcing judgment, metacognitive laziness, AI obesity, hidden operational costs, token economics, and the way incentives can trigger fear or even sabotage. From governance and accountability to how humans and agentic AI might coordinate work, we keep coming back to one theme: intentional use, with humans staying responsible for meaning, context, and decisions.  If you want a pragmatic, human-centred take on generative AI, organisational change, and strategic planning, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who is drowning in AI noise, and leave us a review with your answer: where will you draw the line on what you will not outsource? Find Mark's work here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmarkbloomfield/ Send Mike a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2466969/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast] 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality [https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality] Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/]

Sensemaking Under The Confusion Tax | Richard Claydon

Strategy fails in the gap between the plan and the lived reality of work, and that gap is where most leaders burn out. We sit down with Richard Claydon, an organisational theorist focused on leadership in complex and ambiguous environments, to name what’s really happening when teams feel overloaded, stuck and quietly cynical despite “doing everything right”.  We dig into the confusion tax: the hidden cost that appears when run work, serve work and change work become tightly entangled. That’s when the coordinating middle gets squeezed, sensemaking time disappears, and only operational delivery looks visible or legitimate. Richard offers a sharp lens on the lived experience as stretch, tangle and drift, and we challenge the false fixes that turn into theatre, from extra boards and reporting to superficial wellbeing initiatives that never touch the underlying system.  From there, we build a practical model of leadership that goes beyond direction and care. Richard explains three leadership grammars: sovereignty (decisions and clarity), solidarity (trust and commitment) and the missing piece, sensemaking (reading conditions, aligning interpretations and choosing moves the system can bear). We also explore “Maya”, an amalgamation of effective leaders, to show how sensemaking becomes action through interpretation, mobilisation across stakeholders and small bounded experiments that create islands of coherence you can scale.  If you care about leadership development, organisational complexity, systems thinking and strategy execution that actually works, this conversation will give you language and methods you can use immediately. Subscribe for more, share this with a leader who needs breathing room, and leave a review with the biggest source of confusion tax in your organisation. Find Richard's work here:  Substack: https://richardclaydon.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drrichardclaydon/ Send Mike a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2466969/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast] 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality [https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality] Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/]

Why Just Broadcasting Strategy Is Sabotaging Execution | Jurriaan Kamer

Strategy fails in a painfully predictable place: the moment it leaves the boardroom and lands in everyone else’s calendar. We sit down with Jurriaan Kamer to get brutally practical about why “alignment” so often becomes a loud broadcast, a perfect slide deck, and a quiet wave of cynicism on the ground. Instead, we dig into what actually moves strategy execution forward: orientation to real conditions, clear choices, and activation that gives teams room to interpret and self-align. We also borrow a performance system from an unexpected teacher: Formula One. F1 teams don’t just race fast; they learn fast. Jurriaan explains how reflection is scheduled, how debriefs create psychological safety without losing accountability, and why the best teams rally around a single priority rather than a crowded list. We connect this to organisational design, cross-functional teams, and making work visible by mapping the value chain and measuring time-to-market. Finally, we tackle the hard leadership habits that keep strategy connected to reality: explicit trade-offs through “even over” statements, strategic intent that is ambitious yet achievable over a 2- to 4-year horizon, and the overlooked power of reversible decisions. Less perfection, more experimentation, and more slack so people can think, collaborate, and adapt as the external environment shifts. If this helps you rethink how your organisation turns strategy into daily work, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Find Jurriaan's work:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jurriaankamer/ His books Unblock: https://amzn.eu/d/0j8eVFIF Formula X: https://amzn.eu/d/051BMbWY Send Mike a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2466969/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast] 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality [https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality] Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/]