What follows is a short diagnostic to help you tell whether your strategy has crossed that line, from something people understand intellectually to something they can actually recognize in their day-to-day work.

A Strategy Recognition Test

Answer these questions honestly and without overthinking them. If you find yourself hesitating, that hesitation is useful information.

  1. Can someone describe the strategy without using your words?

If people repeat leadership language verbatim, it often signals compliance rather than understanding. The real question is whether they can translate the strategy into their own terms.

A simple test is to ask a few people in different roles to explain the strategy to someone outside the organization. If their explanation collapses into abstractions or jargon, the strategy hasn’t yet entered their thinking in a usable way.

  1. Where can someone experience the strategy today?

This isn’t about hearing a description of the strategy. It’s about encountering it in action.

Is there a pilot team, a prototype process, a changed customer interaction, or a part of the organization where the future state is already operating, even in a limited form? If there’s no place where someone can see the strategy being lived, you’re asking people to move toward something they can’t yet recognize.

  1. What familiar behavior does the strategy amplify?

Effective change rarely starts from zero. It usually builds on something people already value or do well.

What existing habit, value, or behavior does the strategy make more visible, easier, or more frequent? If the strategy requires people to abandon everything they know and start over, it’s likely to stall. Change needs an anchor in what already feels familiar.

  1. Who has already lived the future?

This isn’t about who approved the strategy or endorsed it in principle. It’s about who has actually operated under the new model long enough to speak from experience.

If no one can point to firsthand experience, the rollout is asking for belief rather than providing evidence. Leaders don’t need to demand trust when they can offer proof.

  1. What would still look different if the strategy were ignored?

This question combines two important tests.

First, if someone asked, “What has changed?”, what would people point to? Real change shows up in concrete things: decisions made differently, behaviors that have shifted, moments that stand out. If the answers are slides, slogans, or meetings, the strategy hasn’t yet crossed into daily work.

Second, imagine a new hire joining tomorrow who pays no attention to the strategy deck. What would they still notice was different about how work gets done? If the honest answer is “not much,” then the strategy hasn’t yet altered the environment.

Until the environment changes, behavior usually won’t.

The Telling Conclusion

Most strategies don’t fail because the direction was wrong. They fail because people didn’t know what it meant for them, day to day.

If even one of these questions made you uneasy, that’s useful. It points to where attention is needed next.