Strategy Meets Reality Podcast

Mike Jones
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Management

Traditional strategy is broken. The world is complex, unpredictable, and constantly shifting—yet most strategy still relies on outdated assumptions of control, certainty, and linear plans. Strategy Meets Reality is a podcast for leaders who know that theory alone doesn’t cut it. Hosted by Mike Jones, organisational psychologist and systems thinker, this show features honest, unfiltered conversations with leaders, strategists, and practitioners who’ve had to live with the consequences of strategy. We go beyond frameworks to explore what it really takes to make strategy work in the real world—where trade-offs are messy, power dynamics matter, and complexity won’t go away. No jargon. No fluff. Just real insight into how strategy and execution actually happen. 🎧 New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe and rethink your strategy.

  1. 1d ago

    Who Leads When AI Thinks | Adrian Wolfberg

    AI is moving faster than our organisations can make sense of, and that gap is where strategy breaks. We sit down with Adrian Wolfberg, a former national security practitioner and author of Who Leads When AI Thinks, to unpack a tough reality: success with AI is not mainly a technology problem; it is a leadership, context, and knowledge integration problem. We start with boundaries and organisational intelligence, the way functions and hierarchies shape what people see, what they value, and what they miss. Adrian shares a concrete story of “Crossing Boundaries”, a skip-level forum designed to surface intractable problems and turn frontline signals into action through accountability and a real business case. It is a grounded look at strategy execution, not theory. From there we zoom out to generative AI and large language models, and why this shift feels like a societal transformation rather than another software rollout. AI can be faster than any team, but it isn't accountable, and it cannot truly hold organisational context, history, politics, relationships, or ethical judgement. That means leaders have to design permeability across silos, strengthen feedback loops, and model the behaviours that keep humans and AI aligned as the environment changes. If you’re thinking about AI governance, organisational design, decision-making, and the future of leadership, this conversation will give you practical angles and better questions. Subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with your take: where do you think this human-AI relationship is heading? Find Adrian's work here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianwolfberg/ Website: https://www.oicllc.org/ Send Mike a Message 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    Who Leads When AI Thinks | Adrian Wolfberg

  2. Sep 1

    Reality First Strategy | Mike Jones

    Most strategy starts in the wrong place. Someone picks the destination, the deck gets built, and nobody stops to examine the ground the organisation is actually standing on. No guest this week. Mike Jones is solo to talk about where the podcast is heading, why he wants more leaders inside organisations rather than commenting from outside them, and what it's been like finishing the book, which is now with the publisher and out on 2nd of March. Then he gets into the thing he keeps having to argue for. Reality first, aspiration second. Where you actually stand, who else is on the terrain with you, and the constraints that give that ground its topology, because some options look attractive on paper and turn out to be Everest. Start with the aspiration, and you'll do what young soldiers do with a map: shape the ground until it matches what you're holding, then get lost. The second half is the part Mike finds hardest to get across: strategy isn't a straight line you walk; it's a relationship you're locked into. Move, and other actors move back, whether they mean to or not. So who responds, how would you know it's coming, and what happens if you do nothing at all? That last question saved a client from handing a small competitor the room to grow into a serious problem three years out. It all runs on organisational intelligence, which is a reserve. Neglect it, and it depletes, and you end up crossing terrain blindfolded. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with someone who owns a strategy, and leave a review. What part of your organisation’s “reality” are you avoiding right now? Send Mike a Message 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    Reality First Strategy | Mike Jones

  3. Aug 18

    Innovation That Survives Reality | Robyn Bolton

    If your organisation keeps saying "we need to be more innovative" while doing everything possible to crush experimentation, this conversation is for you. I'm joined by Robyn Bolton, founder and Chief Navigator at MileZero, to get brutally practical about what it takes to turn a growth strategy into results when uncertainty, incentives and internal politics get in the way.  We explore the core tension leaders face: most people rise by mastering operating excellence in a high-knowledge environment, then get asked to deliver innovation in a low-knowledge, high-assumption world. Robyn lays out a simple, disciplined alternative to big-bang roll-outs: apply the scientific method, break work into assumptions, write hypotheses, and run quick tests starting with the deal killers. Along the way, we unpack why moving fast in the wrong direction is worse than moving slowly in the right one, plus a memorable McDonald's shrimp salad story that shows what happens when nobody checks the maths early.  We also tackle why innovation is rarely an ideas problem. It's a leadership problem and an organisational design problem: governance that rewards wordy papers over learning, incentives tied to the quarter, and corporate antibodies that swarm anything new. We discuss why "lean is the enemy of learning" can be true in exploration, how to define a clear growth gap that forces focus, why portfolios beat single heroic bets, and how to treat AI as a tool rather than a strategy fad.  If you want innovation strategy, growth strategy and corporate innovation to survive contact with reality, subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more leaders find the practical playbook. Find Robyn's work here: https://www.milezero.io https://www.unlockinginnovation.co Send Mike a Message 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    Innovation That Survives Reality | Robyn Bolton

  4. Aug 4

    Making Strategy Real | Evan Campbell

    A strategy can look flawless on a slide deck and still fail the moment it reaches the real world. I’m joined by Evan Campbell, technology executive, former management consultant, and author of Adapt to Win, to unpack why organisations with “good strategy” so often struggle with strategy execution, strategic alignment, and making day-to-day work match leadership intent. We get practical about what breaks: strategy decay as clarity gets lost down the hierarchy, the inertia of an organisation already in motion, and the false comfort of performative rollout activity. Evan explains why OKRs only deliver focus, alignment, and accountability when they are built with a genuine bottom-up contribution, not pushed downhill like old-school MBOs. We also separate the work into three capabilities you can actually improve: strategy development, strategy deployment, and strategy execution, including the controls and feedback loops that stop teams from discovering failure at the end of the quarter. From there, we move into lean portfolio management and investment decisions. If you cannot kill projects, you cannot be adaptive. We talk zombie projects, budget defensiveness, and why portfolio managers often default to ROI and NPV because it feels “objective”, even when it quietly starves innovation. The thread running through everything is trade-offs and accountability: executives must be clear about what not to do, give teams decision rights, and shorten the loop between decisions and consequences. If you want strategy to survive contact with reality, this conversation will give you a sharper lens and a few uncomfortable questions to ask on Monday. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the biggest execution problem you see in your organisation. Find Evan's work here:  Adapt to Win: https://adapttowin.co/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evcampbell/ Send Mike a Message 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    Making Strategy Real | Evan Campbell

  5. Jul 22

    Strategy Meets Reality In Government | Alison Guthrie-Wrenn

    Strategy sounds clean on a slide deck. Then you try to deliver it inside a system with competing priorities, blurred boundaries, and a public spotlight that never switches off. I’m joined by senior civil servant Alison Guthrie-Wrenn to talk about strategy execution where constraints are real, relationships are long-term, and legitimacy is not automatically granted. We compare what it feels like to drive change from inside an organisation versus advising from the outside, and why power dynamics and internal politics shape what can be challenged and what must be navigated. From there, we get practical about systems thinking in government: how to start small, build influence, and use a systemic lens to see interconnections rather than isolated projects. Alison shares why large transformation programmes so often fail, and why the most resilient approach is to hold tight to a clear vision and purpose while keeping the plan flexible as reality shifts underneath you. We also tackle the uniquely public-sector challenge of political cycles, where the route can change overnight, and sometimes even the destination changes too. Add volatility, misinformation, and “trial by Twitter”, and leaders need ways to keep options open without retreating into vague commitments. If you care about adaptive strategy, organisational change, and making better decisions in complex systems, this one will give you the language and tools you can use straight away. Subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review with the most useful question you’re now asking about your own strategy. Connect with Alison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonguthrie-wrenn/ Send Mike a Message 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    Strategy Meets Reality In Government | Alison Guthrie-Wrenn

  6. Jun 30

    The Venture Capital Long Game | Andreas Panayiotou

    Strategy sounds clean on paper until it hits real markets, real customers, real competitors and real time pressure. I’m joined by Andreas Panayiotou from Notion Capital to unpack what venture capital actually optimises for, why VC is a long-horizon game, and how that reality shapes startup strategy, leadership, and decision-making from day one.  We get specific about the scaling journey and the uncomfortable statistics behind it: the power law of venture returns, why many companies stall at key revenue thresholds, and what founders often misunderstand when early traction stops growing. Andreas explains the £3m “chasm” where product-market fit is not enough, and why the hardest move is turning founder-led selling into a repeatable go-to-market engine. We talk positioning, focus, sales motion, and the practical need to document what works so a team can execute it consistently.  Markets do not sit still, and AI disruption makes that painfully obvious. We explore how timing and luck can reshape viability, why some businesses get leapfrogged, and what it takes to pivot without losing the plot. That leads into a sharper theme: speed and judgement. We debate explore versus exploit, Andy Grove’s “let chaos reign” approach, one-way door versus two-way door decisions, and why hiring for intuition and good taste can matter more than perfect data.  If you’re building, investing, or leading strategy in a fast-changing environment, you’ll take away concrete lessons on startup scaling, go-to-market strategy, and adapting to AI-driven change. Subscribe, share with someone building a startup, and leave a review with your biggest question about scaling past the first revenue ceiling. Find Andreas here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anpanayiotou/ Send Mike a Message 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    The Venture Capital Long Game | Andreas Panayiotou

  7. Jun 16

    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/ Substack: 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 Send Mike a Message 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    Relational Dynamics For Strategic Leaders | Dr Alice Jing Shan

  8. Jun 2

    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 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 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

    What is the Neurology of Business | Martin Pfiffner
See All (58)

About

Traditional strategy is broken. The world is complex, unpredictable, and constantly shifting—yet most strategy still relies on outdated assumptions of control, certainty, and linear plans. Strategy Meets Reality is a podcast for leaders who know that theory alone doesn’t cut it. Hosted by Mike Jones, organisational psychologist and systems thinker, this show features honest, unfiltered conversations with leaders, strategists, and practitioners who’ve had to live with the consequences of strategy. We go beyond frameworks to explore what it really takes to make strategy work in the real world—where trade-offs are messy, power dynamics matter, and complexity won’t go away. No jargon. No fluff. Just real insight into how strategy and execution actually happen. 🎧 New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe and rethink your strategy.

Information

  • Creator
    Mike Jones
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    58
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Strategy Meets Reality Podcast
  • Show Website
    Strategy Meets Reality Podcast

You Might Also Like