Isn’t it strategic, don’t you think? Strategy, irony and the decisions that miss the mark

This June marks 30 years since Jagged Little Pill was released - the album that gave us Ironic and accidentally triggered a global debate about what irony actually is.

But here’s the thing: in today’s world of brand and business, Ironic might as well have been called Strategic. Because strategy gets misused just as often. People label things “strategic” that aren’t remotely close. Big gestures. Bold claims. Slick campaigns. All packaged up to sound intentional, without a single meaningful decision behind them.

So I started imagining what the song would sound like… if it were written today.

An old brand turned 98,

They wrote a press release and put it out the next day.

It’s a black mark on their résumé,

It’s death row PR with nothing to say.

And isn’t it strategic?

Don’t you think?

No, not really.

It’s funny how often things get called “strategy” that aren’t strategy at all. So let’s stop singing and start getting into that.

The illusion of intent

We’ve all seen it - the slide deck dressed up as strategy that don’t actually say or do anything. A milestone marked by a press release with no message. A rebrand rolled out with no real purpose. A campaign so polished it blinds everyone to the fact that no one made an actual decision.

It’s the illusion of intent. And it’s everywhere.

The Alanis Effect

Just like Alanis Morissette’s iconic lyrics, which don’t actually describe irony, strategy often gets mislabelled. The word gets thrown around to make things sound more important. It gets tagged onto slide decks, dropped into meetings, and wrapped around vague ideas to give them weight. But most of the time, what people call “strategy” isn’t strategy at all.

That’s the Alanis Effect - the mismatch between what something says it is and what it actually does.

Fake strategy is everywhere

The impact isn’t just semantic - it’s structural. A Harvard study found that 95% of employees don’t understand their company’s strategy. Honestly, it’s no surprise. Strategy, in many places, has become a catch-all for “some things we’d like to do.”

That’s not strategy. That’s just a wish list with a smart-sounding label.

And you can spot fake strategy a mile off. It’s the customer-first promise with no research behind it. The visionary shift made entirely of buzzwords. The deck full of “strategic priorities” that don’t lead to a single decision. It might look impressive, but it doesn’t shape the work or enable real action.

What real strategy looks like

Real strategy is different. It’s grounded in clarity and built on real insight. It involves trade-offs. It has the power to say “no.” And most importantly, it’s something the team actually uses to guide decisions, shape creative, and move forward together.

Because strategy isn’t about how something sounds - it’s about what it enables. If it only shows up once, buried in a slide deck, it’s not strategy. It’s decoration. If it sounds smart but doesn’t help anyone move, it’s not strategy. It’s gridlock.

And calling something strategic when it’s not? Well, that’s like calling ten thousand spoons a knife.

If you’re tired of strategy that talks a big game but doesn’t do anything, let’s fix that.

Lucky Start. Less spoon. More knife.

Don’t you think?