Episode
445: Ride the Wave Already Moving with Sarah Olivieri
- Published
- Aug 10, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 535
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Summary
Ride the Wave Already Moving with Sarah Olivieri Strategic planning gets treated like a decision you make in a quiet room, then hand down to the team. So leaders sit down to "set direction," invent something new from scratch, and spend the next year trying to force it into existence. The resource burn is real. The traction usually isn't. In this solo episode, Sarah breaks down why strategy is mostly discovered rather than decided, and how to tell the difference before you commit the year to it. In This Episode, You'll Learn The two sides of strategy — fixing what's already running and growing what's new — and why they need different thinking Why deciding a brand-new direction is one of the most resource-intensive moves a leader can make, and when it's actually worth it What "sprouts" look like inside your organization and out in the wider world, and how to spot them early Two strategic questions Sarah keeps coming back to (including the Dan Sullivan three-year question) Why listening — to words, data, body language, and energy — is a core strategic skill, not a soft one Who This Episode Is For • Executive directors staring at a blank strategic plan template wondering where to start • CEOs who feel like every new direction is being pushed uphill • Leadership teams heading into a planning retreat and wanting to walk in with better questions • Anyone who has ever committed to a bold new strategy and watched it stall out by Q2 More on the subject • Before you decide a new direction, list what's already emerging inside your team, your programs, and your data • Run the Dan Sullivan question with your leadership team: if we were meeting in three years and everything had gone really well, what would need to have happened? • Ask the One Thing question: what's the one thing that…