Be More Strategic: Habits That Separate Direction from Busyness - with Charlie Curzon

Strategy Isn't a Plan - and That Difference Could Change Everything

Most of the people I speak with on this show are smart, capable, and deeply experienced. And yet a surprising number of them are working without a clear strategy - not because they don't care about direction, but because no one ever explained what strategy actually is, and how it's different from the planning they do every single day.

That's exactly what this conversation with Charlie Curzon is about.

Charlie is a coach, strategist, and advisor with more than two decades of experience helping leaders, teams, and organisations think more effectively. His book, Be More Strategic: 12 Essential Practises to Build the Life and Career You Want, turns one of the most overused words in business into something genuinely teachable, practical, and personal.

Three things we got into:

✳️ Strategy is about choices in uncertainty - not a five-year plan. Charlie draws on Roger Martin's strategy cascade to show how winning aspiration, where to play, and how to win work together as a thinking triangle that sharpens decisions before you ever get to planning.

✳️ The Strategy Mastery Framework is a four-level circular model built from years of working with real leaders in business, sport, and the military. It begins with self-awareness - because state precedes strategy - and builds through open-mindedness, strategic skills, and the ability to bring others on board.

✳️ Being strategic isn't just for work. Charlie makes the case that surfacing assumptions, asking "what if," and tracking how those assumptions shift over time are daily practises that apply just as well to life as to any boardroom decision.

Charlie's amplifiers:

✳️ Read The Go-Giver by Bob Burg - a short, parable-style book about generosity of spirit that Charlie credits with reinforcing the relational approach behind much of his work.

✳️ Track your energy, not just your time. Based on Jim Loehr's book On Form, Charlie recommends keeping a three-day energy diary - logging what gives you energy and what drains it - to uncover patterns and improve your capacity for clear thinking.

✳️ Journal daily, ideally with pen and paper. Even a couple of minutes. Charlie does it twice a day and notes the growing evidence that handwriting engages the mind differently to typing. If you're ready to go deeper, try journalling through a values lens.

If this conversation got you thinking about how you're making decisions - at work or in life - then I'd love it if you took a moment to follow or subscribe. That way you'll never miss an episode, and it helps me keep bringing guests like Charlie to the show.