Your company's strategy is a list of ambitions
Grow, delight, lead: it names nothing you would stop doing.
Courses
See what you would learn
Tell a strategy from a list of goals.
A course on what makes a business strategy useful. It covers the difference between goals and choices, how competitive advantage actually works, and how to examine tradeoffs so a strategy says what you will not do.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.
Type this when Cadence asks what you want to learn
I want to understand what makes a business strategy useful. Help me examine tradeoffs, competitive advantage, and the choices that distinguish a strategy from a list of goals.
Change any word so it fits your situation. The course is built from what you type and a few setup questions.
- Best for
- Business
- Prerequisites
- None. Bring the situation you have.
- Course length
- 7 to 30 lessons, sized to your goal
- Lesson pace
- About 10 minutes a day
- Format
- Read it, or play the audio
- Access
- Available on the App Store, with early features and Android testing access
Before the course is built
Setup asks about your situation first.
Lesson 1 opens on the moment you describe, and the examples use your role. For this request, expect questions like these.
- Do you need this for your own team or business, or to understand the strategy you are handed?
- Have you seen a strategy document that felt empty, and can you say why?
- Is there a real decision you are trying to think through strategically?
Right for now
If any of this sounds familiar, start here.
You are asked to think strategically and cannot say what that means
The word gets used as praise and criticism without a definition.
You make choices without a frame
Decisions get taken one at a time and never add up.
Course arc
Where the course goes, in order.
Cadence writes the lessons for you, so the exact path follows your answers. This is the ground a course built from this sentence covers.
01 / 06Goals are not strategy
Why aspirations feel like strategy, and what is missing from them.
Diagnosis first
Naming the real challenge before choosing what to do about it.
Where to play, how to win
The core choices, and how they constrain each other.
Competitive advantage
What lets a business keep its profits, and how advantage erodes.
Tradeoffs and coherence
Choices that reinforce each other, and the ones that quietly cancel out.
Testing a strategy
Questions that reveal whether a strategy document actually decides anything.
What changes
What you will be able to do, and what you will stop believing.
You will be able to
Recognise a real strategy
Tell a coherent set of choices from a list of hopes.
Reason about advantage
Explain why a business wins where it wins, and where it does not.
Make tradeoffs explicit
State what a choice gives up, which is what makes it a choice.
Ideas this course corrects
Strategy is about being ambitious
Strategy is about being coherent. Ambition without choices is a wish.
A good strategy pleases everyone
A real strategy disappoints someone, because it says what you will not do.
Course questions
What to know before you start.
Is this a fixed course?
No. Cadence builds the course when you type the sentence and answer a few setup questions, so the lessons follow your situation. This page describes what a course built from this request covers. You see the whole path before Lesson 1.
Who is this course for?
A course on what makes a business strategy useful. It covers the difference between goals and choices, how competitive advantage actually works, and how to examine tradeoffs so a strategy says what you will not do. It sits under Business in the Work & ambitions part of the library.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Setup asks what you already know and where you want to use it, and the course starts from there. Bring a real situation if you have one; the examples are built around it.
How long does it take?
Courses run 7 to 30 lessons of about 10 minutes, sized to what you asked for. One lesson a day is the intended pace, and you can go faster. Lessons can be read or played as audio.
Does this course award a certificate or degree?
No. Cadence is for practical self-learning and does not award accredited degrees or professional certification.
Start today
Type it, answer a few questions, open Lesson 1.
The sentence to type
I want to understand what makes a business strategy useful. Help me examine tradeoffs, competitive advantage, and the choices that distinguish a strategy from a list of goals.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.