The One Page Strategy
Four parts, half a page, and your whole leadership team behind it
A free one-page strategy template: four parts, half a page, and a way to write it with your whole leadership team.
“We don’t have time to make a strategy, we have too much work to do already.”
That’s exactly why you need one. A strategy is how you decide which things to do first and do well, and which can be dropped, delayed or done just-good-enough.
But you’ve probably seen the strategy decks. Hundreds of slides, with pillars and onions and data galore. You finish more confused than you started, and you couldn’t explain it to someone over a coffee if your promotion depended on it.
A one-page strategy is the opposite. One paragraph, two sentences and five bullet points. Half a page to a page, in four parts that tell a story.
The four parts
The Facts. “Here’s how it is.” A short paragraph on where you are, starting with your customers: what they’re trying to do, what they value, and what their alternatives are.
The Problem. “Oh no!” One sentence on the key challenge your customers want solved in the next 3–18 months. Go deeper than “we need more revenue”.
The Idea. “Breakthrough!” One sentence on the belief that will guide how you solve it. This is the essence of your strategy.
The Solution. “Here’s what we’ll do.” Up to five bullet points, in order. The big changes, decisions and trade-offs, including what you’ll stop doing.
Each part depends on the one before. If you don’t agree on the Facts, you won’t agree on the Problem. If you disagree on the Problem, the Idea won’t make sense. That’s what makes it so easy for people to react to, and to disagree with in a useful way.
Use it with your leadership team
I often have the whole leadership team write a one-page strategy each, and then we workshop them together. Read them in pairs, then in fours, then all together (you can use the 1-2-4-All Method). You bring out the different ideas in the room, and everyone gets heard, so they back the result.
Aligned is better than perfect. If you’re all rowing in the same wrong direction, you’ll notice and course-correct. If everyone rows in a different direction, you go nowhere, and everyone keeps believing they’re right.
What’s in the guide
Why your strategy should start with your customers.
How to write each of the four parts, and the words to avoid.
How to review, revise and align with your team, your manager and your stakeholders.
Two worked examples: a SaaS company choosing a new market, and a partner onboarding team stuck in a backlog.
It’s eight pages, but it’s about how to write one page.
The Guide
Eight pages on writing your strategy on one page. Free PDF, no email needed.
Where it came from
The four-part structure is based on Alex M H Smith’s No Bullsh*t Strategy, with ideas from Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and The Crux, and Playing to Win by A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin.
Want help with this?
I help leadership teams write their strategy together, in a day or two, and coach the leaders who then have to lead it.
Leading change in a bigger organisation? Transformation →
Created by
Richard Russell
Coach for founders and leadership teams
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Here’s a one-page strategy template, and how to write it with the whole leadership team.