Navigating inflection points
Why separating Performance-led and Vision-led strategy matters
In a recent conversation, someone asked:
“I love the framing of Strategy as either performance-based or vision-based. But can you elaborate on what does that actually mean in practical terms, and why does it matter in the long term?”
It’s a great question! It calls for an exposition of the common blind spots in how companies make decisions. Companies make trade offs through their strategy. And you know your strategy is ineffective when no-one wants to, or can, make trade offs.
I coined Performance-led, and Vision-led strategy last year, through the years of strategy work I have done in both early stage and scale up companies. The two are not the same. They are same same but different.
Let’s revisit what I mean by that:
Performance-Based Strategy
This approach focuses on optimising for measurable results — be that growth, efficiency, ROI, margin etc. It’s guided by data, predictability, and bottom-up insights. It relies on legacy. The goal is to maximise what’s already working or fix what’s underperforming. It is mostly used in the quarterly, or project-based work or scale ups; or yearly planning of mature giants.
Time horizon: short (3–9 months).
In this mode, strategy feels operational - you’re tightening the machine, reducing waste, improving outcomes.
Vision-Led Strategy
This is about creating a future state that doesn’t yet exist. It’s driven by a belief - a view of what the world should look like and how your company fits into it. Leaders make a set of assumptions about the future and build from there. Decisions are made from clarity of vision, not past data. They’re top-down, often based on foresight and a dose of optimism.
Time horizon: long (2–3 years).
Here, strategy feels creative - you’re (re)building the machine.
Navigate inflection points: separate P- & V-led strategy
Separating performance-based and vision-led strategy isn’t about choosing one over the other. It’s about making trade-offs explicit. When you separate them to bring clarity and everyone on board, by showing what are your big bets, what keeps the foundation of the business solid, and the direction in which those two pull.
Aa few things happen long-term:
You balance short-term survival with long-term relevance.
You avoid measurement bias by remembering that brand, trust, and category leadership matter even when they’re hard to quantify.
You navigate industry shifts more successfully: optimising today without locking yourself out of tomorrow; and building towards a distant future without burning your fundamentals to the ground.
Because if you only think in performance terms, you’ll over-optimise a system that’s becoming obsolete.
And if you only think in vision terms, you’ll burn cash before the new world materialises.
Final Word
Separating performance-based and vision-led strategy is how teams stop confusing doing things right with doing the right things.
I will leave it at that.