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Strategy Traps To Avoid In 2026

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
— Charles Dickens

We’re heading into 2026, and you’re probably knee-deep in annual planning sessions right about now. Let me ask you something: Will next year be the best of times for your company, or the worst?

One major factor? The strategy you’re developing right now.

Here’s what I’ve learned after two decades of watching companies plan their futures: strategy isn’t about fancy frameworks or impressive slide decks. It’s about making tough choices that give you a real competitive advantage. Patrick Lencioni calls it your “plan for success.” A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin, in their excellent book Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, define it as “the art of making specific choices to win in the marketplace.”

That word choices is key. Because here’s the thing—most strategy failures aren’t about making the wrong choices. They’re about failing to make real choices at all.

The Six Strategy Traps

Over the years, I’ve seen companies fall into the same traps repeatedly. Here are the most common ones that A.G. Lafley and Roger Martinto recommend to watch for as you plan 2026 [1]:

The do-it-all strategy
Everything becomes a priority, which means nothing actually is. You’re spreading resources so thin that nothing gets done exceptionally well.

The Don Quixote strategy
You decide to take on the market leader head-to-head, attacking their strongest position first. It rarely ends well.

The Waterloo strategy
Fighting multiple competitors on multiple fronts simultaneously. Your team is exhausted, confused, and losing on every battlefield.

The something-for-everyone strategy
Trying to capture every customer segment, every geography, every channel at once. You end up serving no one particularly well.

The dreams-that-never-come-true strategy
Beautiful mission statements and inspiring aspirations that never translate into concrete decisions about where to play and how to win.

The program-of-the-month strategy
Chasing the same customers in the same ways as everyone else in your industry, hoping that somehow you’ll get different results.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

Here’s My Take

Here’s where my “Learn to See” approach comes in. These traps persist because they’re hidden in plain sight—disguised as ambitious goals, comprehensive planning, or competitive urgency.

The antidote? Learning to see the patterns before they become problems. That means asking yourself hard questions during planning: Are we making real choices, or just adding to our list? Are we being strategic, or just being busy? Are we building on our unique strengths, or copying what everyone else is doing?

Strategy requires seeing clearly what most companies miss: that sustainable competitive advantage comes from making deliberate choices about what not to do as much as what to do.

If you’re planning for 2026 and want to avoid these traps, The Execution Canvas can help you translate your strategy into clear, actionable choices that your team can actually execute.

Here’s to making 2026 your best year yet. And, wishing you and family a great Thanksgiving holiday.