The Future of Strategy: A Transformative Approach to Strategy for a World That Won’t Stand Still

Introduction

ONE OF US WAS HAVING DINNER some time ago when a colleague asked him why he didn’t play chess. “All strategists play chess,” his colleague said, “so why don’t you?” Everyone at the table was silent, waiting for an answer.

Years ago, our colleague would have had a point. In the 1980s, strategy was indeed like playing chess, which is done on a board with 64 squares and 6 unique pieces, or chessmen, that are allowed specific moves. Chess and strategy were about thinking ahead and anticipating competitors’ moves. Each could be done in a fairly analytical way, drawing on what had happened in the past. That IBM’s supercomputer Watson was able to beat Gary Kasparov, the world’s best chess player in the 1990s, is evidence of this.

Today, ...