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You’re in a strategy retreat. You see an opening to shift the conversation—a strategic insight you know could change the trajectory. You speak up with confidence. And then… blank looks. Awkward silence. The room moves on as if you hadn’t spoken.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO, the board chair, or an ambitious director. The frustration is identical: you have strategic clarity, you know the frameworks, yet your interventions land with a thud while others command the room effortlessly. Most executives diagnose this as needing sharper frameworks or better presentation skills. Wrong problem.

This episode exposes what elite strategists do differently: they’ve built pattern libraries from accumulated case exposure that allow them to deploy diagnostic stories, pattern stories, and origin stories in the moment—not in PowerPoint decks afterward. You’ll discover why Julius Yego’s YouTube-driven Olympic medal validates cognitive science research on tacit knowledge, how Samuel Berger’s “intellectual dark matter” explains the gap between knowing frameworks and commanding strategic conversations, and why the three-season development model transforms in-the-room impact when executive programs don’t.

For global executives who’ve exhausted conventional development paths, this reveals the hidden capability that separates persuasive pattern recognition from forgettable framework recitation—and the deliberate practice method that builds it.

Enjoy the full video of this episode below for all subscribers.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit longtermstrategy.substack.com/subscribe

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As a productivity enthusiast, you want to start each day on the right foot. You believe it’s the key to having a great day.

However, you are confused by the advice you have heard from experts. Some say start slowly, others start small, a few counsel you to “eat the frog” and do the most difficult task first.

Perhaps you have tried them all! But you want to be efficient, which means using an approach that works best for you.

How do you figure out the best approach to take?

Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Steven Puri, we tackle and even try to solve this wicked problem together.

00:00 – Opening & The Cold Start Problem

05:07 – Why Mornings Go Wrong

15:26 – Insight #1: A Great Morning Starts with a Great Evening

16:49 – Insight #2: You Lose the Morning Because You Lost the Evening

54:00 – Insight #3: Happiness Is a Function of What You Do in the Morning

Get full access to Francis A. Wade at 2timelabs.substack.com/subscribe

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Transcript

00:00:01

Stop me if you’ve been in Bob’s position. Every strategist learns the frameworks. Porto five forces, blue ocean strategy, and SWAT analysis. And we assume great strategy comes from great frameworks. So how Schultz of Starbucks fame, he knew all of the frameworks, but he didn’t transform Starbucks or any of them. In 1983, Schulz visited Milan. He walked into an express bar. He saw the ritual, the community, the third place between home and work. And that experience became a story. That story became his northstar.

00:00:34

That story created a hundred billion dollar plus company. Not a framework, a story. But here’s where most strategists get stuck. Baba spent hours preparing for the strategy retreat. He had the perfect framework from his MBA and he was excited because he was going to nail it by explaining this framework. As the conversation progressed, some doubts crept in, but he prepared for hours. So when the moment came he jumped in and as he explained his framework eyes glazed over. So he tried to speed up

00:01:07

that made it worse. Phones came out people started to read and his boss gave him a dark look that was kind of like a cut it out and Bob gave up. But moments later another colleague jumped in. And in that case, she told a story. And Bob suddenly realized she was explaining the same concept that he just tried to describe using a framework. But this time, the heads were nodding. There were some new insights that were emerging as people built on her initial story. There was some buying happening. She was accomplishing the result. And he

00:01:42

thought to himself, why didn’t I try that? Well, here’s what he discovered and what Howard Schultz knew all along. that we’ve been taught that strategic thinking is about mastering frameworks. They give us the illusion of sophistication. But here’s the truth that plays out in every boardroom and every strategy retreat and every presentation given by consultants that there’s a big difference between strategic thinking and strategic fluency. Strategic thinking is all about those frameworks

00:02:09

that you learned in MBA school, ones I mentioned before. Strategic fluency teaches you stories. So when JFK committed America to go to the moon, he didn’t pull out the Gad chart. He didn’t tell a framework. Instead, he went to the future and told a story about the future. So the best strategists actually aren’t searching for which framework applies in which situation. Instead, they’re reaching out for their curated collection of signature stories. So how do you avoid that awkward moment Bob

00:02:38

found himself in? I recommend that you prepare three signature stories. One transformational stories like the one about Schulz in Milan. One about the future like Kennedy’s moonshot. And one story about strategic choice. That’s three stories. Good news is that Strat Cinema helps you to find your three.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit longtermstrategy.substack.com/subscribe

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Picture two teams in your company, six months apart.

The first team is drowning. They have 47 “strategic initiatives” on their list, no clear way to prioritize, and every meeting devolves into debates about resources. Morale is terrible, and nobody can articulate what they’re really trying to accomplish.

Fast forward six months: the same team, but now they’re energized, focused, and can explain their strategy in three minutes. Projects that don’t serve their core hypothesis get killed quickly. They’re making contingency plans because they understand their strategy is a bet, not a certainty.

What happened in between?

They stopped confusing a strategic plan with actual strategy. Today, I want to walk you through that transformation, because the gap between these two states isn’t about working harder—it’s about thinking differently.

Tune into this episode to join me in tackling this wicked problem.

I’m Francis Wade and welcome to the JumpLeap Long-Term Strategy Podcast

Here is a video of the full episode. You can also follow the podcast on YouTube.

Show Notes

NotebookLM link

https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/6e0f6686-25ff-44b8-a629-54df92dbef7c?authuser=1

Link to Fictional Credit Union Case

https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/33364888-4e5a-4738-80d1-24f2c42c66cd?authuser=1

Roger Martin’s Video

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit longtermstrategy.substack.com/subscribe

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You are both a fan of Ai and task management. HAving achieved gains in both areas over the years, the recent outbreak of LLMs has made you hungry for better task management using Ai solutions.

But nothing seems to be happening.

 

You keep looking for AI companies to offer insights but they have not made any progress beyond vague recommendations – really bland stuff. There must be a way…but the waiting game is killing you.

Maybe they are missing an understanding of the fundamentals of task management. If so, what can be gained from having special insights?

Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Dr. Brad Aeon, as we tackle and even try to solve this wicked problem together.

Brad Aeon is a time management expert and researcher. He did his Ph.D. on time, wellbeing, and productivity at Concordia University, and now works with organizations around the world to help them implement the latest research on time management.

 

His insights and ideas have been featured in top-tier media outlets, including the Harvard Business Review, BBC News, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and many more.

His TEDx Talk, “The Philosophy of Time Management,” explores some of the most important ideas in time management and has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people on YouTube.

 

Get full access to Francis A. Wade at 2timelabs.substack.com/subscribe

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You are an efficient person, but you are also polite and care about other people. When they want some of your time, you are happy to give it.

However, there are personalities you find to be difficult – they take way too much time. In conversation with them, you find yourself glancing at your watch, trying to be productive by ending the conversation…but you can’t 

 

And you don’t want to be rude, but what can you do to address the stereotypical time hoarder? 

Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Jennifer Morin, as we tackle this wicked problem together.

I’m Francis Wade and welcome to the Task Management & Time Blocking Podcast

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You are someone who does a great deal of time blocking in your calendar. You follow the best practice and don’t try to schedule big complex tasks – instead, you schedule their sub-tasks.

But how do you deal with tasks whose complexity is hidden? In other words, it contains far more sub-tasks than you imagined. When you come upon them, a 4-hour task can take 20 hours!

Is there anything you can do?

Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Trevor Lohrbeer, we tackle this wicked productivity problem together.

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Once again, you find yourself caught in a bad meeting. As you glance at your watch, you are hoping it will end quickly, and put you out of your misery. Why? Little of value is being accomplished.

But how can you make sure this problem goes away? If you’re in an organization, ”Saying No” may give you some relief, but it does not solve the underlying issue. In fact, you are not sure anything will!

Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Ben Kirk, we solve this wicked problem together.

 

Get full access to Francis A. Wade at 2timelabs.substack.com/subscribe

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