Ottoman sultan Mehmed II earned the sobriquet Fatih (Conqueror) for the successful siege of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) in 1453CE. Mehmed’s siege artillery included a giant cannon that shot cannonballs weighing a tonne each, and large number of smaller catapults and cannons. He brought to the siege a large army led by the disciplined professional corps of Janissaries. In comparison, defenders of the walled city—a motley group of volunteers and mercenaries under the command of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI—were a meagre force. On 21 April 1453CE, the tenth day of the siege, continuous bombardment resulted in a massive breach in the wall adjacent to St. Romanus Gate. The Ottomans could have entered through the breach and taken the city. The defenders feared the imminent entry of Ottoman forces into the fortified city, but the invaders kept on bombarding the breached fort. The Ottoman commanders were awaiting further orders.

Mehmed was in war council. Though the field commanders rushed news of the breach to Mehmed, the messenger was waiting to be given audience. The defenders had stockaded the breach by the time Mehmed learned of it and ordered entry into the fort. The Ottomans could have captured the city early in the siege if the field commanders had been allowed to take the initiative to move in quickly once the wall was breached. It took Mehmed another six weeks to enter Constantinople victorious, with significant loss of life and resources on both sides.¹
Mehmed the Conqueror kept his cards close to his chest. His field commanders were unwilling to second-guess their leader. They would continue to follow the standing order, rather than take initiative. Failure, even when following the sultan’s orders, often resulted in painful death for the unsuccessful commander and his kin.² This is how many CEOs, including some successful ones, play the competition game. Their managers spend valuable resources and time bombarding breached forts.

The formulae for Coca-Cola and WD-40 have been kept secret to the immense benefit of eponymous businesses for decades. Google’s algorithms to deliver immaculately accurate search results are not fully understood even by many within the company. Disclosure of these formulae or algorithms would have spawned copycats that could undermine the ability of these companies to profit from their knowledge. This is because, once someone has the knowledge of the formula or algorithm, it would be possible to imitate, assuming they also have access to complementary resources and capabilities to go-to-market successfully.

Secrecy matters when the source of your advantage is not difficult to imitate. The more difficult it is for others to imitate, the less relevant will secrecy be. Secrecy is least relevant for your strategy as it is often difficult to copy and execute well, even with thorough knowledge of your game plan. Your rivals may be pursuing a different strategic direction and may not find it feasible or relevant to change direction. They may be aware of what you are doing or trying to do, but have limited knowledge of how to imitate your game plan. They may know how to copy you but may not possess the resources and capabilities essential to pull off a successful imitation.

When managers are asked about the secrecy of their strategy, they would cite several reasons. It is preferable to operate on a need-to-know basis, as it requires fewer explanations on why you did something, or decided on something but are doing something else. You do not gain much by revealing everything to all. The larger the number of people you share your plans with, the more likely that it will reach your rivals. You do not want to fall foul with regulators. Then, there is the riposte, “not everyone understands my grand strategy”.

These do not stand the test of logic or reason. Need-to-know flies in the face of the well-established imperative for successful strategy execution—creating a shared understanding of the change agenda with stakeholders to secure their buy-in.³ You are not necessarily at a disadvantage simply because your rivals are aware of your strategy, as they are unlikely to change their strategic direction based on changes to your game plan.⁴ Some rivals may likely respond or preempt, remaining within the boundaries of their strategic direction, which should be par-for-the-course in a competitive battle. Your compliance experts will tell you how to not fall foul with regulators. If your strategy is difficult to grasp, it is already doomed to fail, as even your managers will find it difficult to execute successfully. No point keeping it secret.

If your game plan is quite different from the dominant strategies of rivals, they may conclude that you are chasing windmills—they don’t want to imitate your game plan. That is what leading automakers did when Elon Musk shouted from the rooftop his plans to launch a stylish, spacious, fast, and not-so-expensive electric sports car.⁵ In your business, there are certain aspects that are best kept confidential. Your strategy is definitely not one of them.

There are clear benefits to sharing your strategy with relevant stakeholders. If the front-line warriors in your organisation do not know what battle they are in, how do you expect them to fight to win? If your key stakeholders are unaware of your priorities, how can they support you, even if they want to? The key to success is not about concealing your strategy—that idea, from prying eyes. It is execution of the idea, and that just does not come easily to someone who is aware of that idea.

Both external and internal stakeholders ought to understand what your business stands for, how you envision the future, and intend to get there—your values, vision, and strategy. The more clearly these are articulated and understood, the better will be the self-selection of stakeholders such as employees, vendors, business partners, investors and so on, to engage with you or not. Like-minded stakeholders are likely to show more commitment to your company, beyond the direct benefits of doing business.

Elon Musk publicly articulated his strategy for Tesla in a blog in 2006, irreverently titled “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)”. He summarised the strategy in four bullet points: “(1) Build sports car, (2) Use that money to build an affordable car, (3) Use that money to build an even more affordable car, and (4) While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options”.⁶

It took several years for its main rivals to start developing electric cars. Meanwhile, Tesla’s master plan attracted several partners who supported Tesla in design and development of its products, production technology and other value chain elements such as customer experience stores. Even rivals Daimler and Toyota collaborated with Tesla in executing its strategy.⁷

Finally, internal stakeholders are the ones fighting in the trenches—the front-line warriors in sales, after-market service, customer care, the sappers in design, product development, operations and supply chain. They need to know what they are fighting for—vision and strategic objectives, how they are supposed to fight—values, and who and what they are competing against—the evolving and dynamic competitive landscape. The internal stakeholders are those who provide and valuable competition-relevant intelligence to your CxOs and strategists.

Playing close to the chest with your internal stakeholders often turns out to be counterproductive. Critical information is lost because those in the trenches do not sense its importance. Efforts of different parts of your organisation get dissipated, pursuing not-so-relevant objectives or working at cross purposes. Instead of focusing on external rivals, they are likely to focus on internal battles and rivals—considering other units and functions in the organisation as rivals. All these are likely to result in disastrous consequences for your business.

Among the most significant of the top management roles, is to foster a shared understanding of vision, values, and strategy with members of the organisation and with business partners who are making commitments; seeking to build in them the appreciation of how they fit in. That is the strategy-aware organisation, where every member knows what they are doing and how their contribution dovetails into the big picture. Making your organisation and business ecosystem strategy-aware is not an optional good-to-have. It is a must-have for your organisation to be battle-ready.