Why Your Strategy Must Fit You, Not the Last Champion

Why Your Strategy Must Fit You, Not the Last Champion

When David stepped onto the battlefield to face Goliath, he wasn’t just confronting a giant. He was confronting a champion. Goliath had never lost. His confidence didn’t stem from arrogance, but from experience. He had fought and won countless times, always using the same approach. He expected his next opponent to do the same and to fail just as predictably.

But David disrupted that expectation.
He didn’t approach the fight with brute strength. He didn’t wear traditional armour. He didn’t wield the usual weapons. Instead, David relied on something far more powerful: clarity of identity and precision of execution.

David’s strength wasn’t in his size. It was in his agility, his accuracy, and his understanding of what made him effective.

Before the battle, King Saul tried to outfit David with traditional armour — heavy, oversized, and built for a very different kind of warrior. David quickly recognised that someone else's strategy, no matter how well-intentioned, didn’t fit his path or his strengths. He removed it, stayed true to his own approach, and secured a decisive victory.

The Executive Parallel

In business, we all face Goliaths. Market incumbents. Regulatory headwinds. Scaling complexities. Cultural resistance to change. These aren’t new challenges. Many have faced them before. And many advisors will offer tried-and-tested solutions that worked but not necessarily for your context.

This is where strategic misalignment becomes costly.

You can’t afford to fight the giants in your industry with someone else's armour. Every business has a unique fingerprint, shaped by its people, culture, stage of growth, and strategic intent. What works for an established corporate may be entirely wrong for an organisation navigating a pivot, a merger, or accelerated expansion.

Strategy Must Be Tailored

Don’t get me wrong, experience and wisdom are incredibly valuable when applied correctly. The right advisor brings insight, pattern recognition, and perspective. But even the most seasoned guidance must be filtered through the lens of your context.

The best strategic advisors understand more than the broader market landscape. They understand you. They take the time to assess your current state, your capabilities, and your organisational rhythm. They offer advice that aligns with your reality, not just generic best practice.

Otherwise, they risk weighing you down with tools, frameworks, or mindsets that were never designed for your structure. They may recommend approaches rooted in scale and tradition when what you need is speed, precision, and adaptability.

Agility matters more than legacy. Precision matters more than power. Self-awareness matters more than convention.

The businesses that thrive, especially during periods of disruption or reinvention, are those that understand exactly who they are, where they’re going, and how to apply insight through the filter of their own identity.

Before you step up to face your next Goliath, ask yourself:
Is your strategy truly yours, or are you still wearing someone else's armour?