06.1 · 12 January 2026
A step is not a slogan
Strategy language fails when the room cannot point to the step it just took.
A slogan can open a meeting. It cannot be the meeting. On the strategy ladder a step has an owner, a decision, and a rule for what may happen next. If those three are missing, the sentence on the wall is still a slogan, however carefully it was drafted on the way from the airport.
Boards that sit with this practice in Frankfurt are asked to retire one sentence per session. The sentence is not shamed. It is tested. Can another officer carry it on Tuesday without the author in the room? If the answer is no, it goes back on the ladder as an unfinished step, not out into a letter to the firm.
Sales targets and people decisions fail in the same way. A number with no owner is a wish. A hiring line with no step is a mood. The ladder does not sort them into different religions of management. It asks the same three questions of each.