The Customer Is the Only Judge
Law II of Martins Three Laws, and the reason Martin rewrote his definition in Strategy Is Choice. A company controls nearly everything about itself, pricing, hiring, product, structure, spend.
A company controls nearly everything about itself, pricing, hiring, product, structure, spend. The single thing it cannot control is what the customer does. Strategy therefore has one purpose: to configure everything you control so as to move the one thing you don't, Compelling Customer Action.
Consequences:
- Internal measures of strategic success (alignment, milestones, initiative completion) are proxies at best, theatre at worst.
- A How to Win is only real if the customer can perceive and act on the advantage. Technical superiority the buyer cannot see or does not value compels nothing.
- Strategy review should begin from evidence of changed customer behaviour, not progress against plan.
This law is the sharp edge against Strategy Impostors, a beautiful plan that leaves customer behaviour unchanged is a failed strategy with good production values. It is also the sharpest argument ever made against Task-Based Key Results.
Our synthesis of Roger Martin’s published work, sources credited. Read the originals: they’re excellent.
Reading about method is not the same as running it. We install this system and build the capability that stays.
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