The cursor blinks at 402% zoom, a rhythmic heartbeat in a sea of sterile white. Rachel T.J. is currently adjusting the saturation on a digital rendering of a mahogany bookshelf, a ‘virtual background’ designed to give a mid-level VP the gravitas of a Supreme Court justice. It’s a strange living she’s made for herself, crafting the architecture of professional deception. She knows that the man who will use this background actually works from a cluttered corner of his basement, surrounded by 22 boxes of unopened tax returns and a stationary bike that has served as a laundry rack for the last 12 months. But on the Zoom call for the ‘Strategy 2032’ unveiling, he will look like a man of profound literary depth. This is the first layer of the fiction.

The second layer is the document he is about to present: a 52-page PDF that cost the firm $802,002 in consulting fees and approximately 2,222 hours of internal meetings.

We spent 12 months drafting a plan that claimed to forecast the market for the next 2,552 days, only to see the entire logic of the document dismantled by a supply chain hiccup that occurred just 32 days after the all-hands meeting. We are obsessed with the map, even as the terrain shifts beneath our feet like liquid.

The Corporate Liturgy of Anxiety

Everyone in the room knows the 122-slide deck is a hallucination. They know that the ‘synergistic leverage’ promised in Q2 of year three is a placeholder for ‘we hope things get better.’ Yet, they nod. They provide feedback on the font size (which was adjusted 12 times). They argue over whether the mission statement should include the word ’empower’ or ‘accelerate.’ It is a form of corporate liturgy. We are not planning for the future; we are performing a ritual to appease the gods of uncertainty. We want to believe that the world is a clock we can wind, rather than a storm we must endure.

Rachel T.J. clicks ‘save’ on the background. She’s added a subtle dust-mote effect to the virtual sunlight hitting the fake books. It’s beautiful. It’s evocative. It’s also entirely irrelevant to the quality of the VP’s leadership. But that’s the point. If we look the part, and if the PDF is long enough, we can ignore the 2-headed monster of reality lurking in the hallway. We have replaced actual operational agility with the aesthetic of preparedness.

This is the great contradiction of modern leadership. We criticize the ‘slow-moving’ nature of the old guard, yet we insist on creating static documents that are obsolete the moment they are exported to a thumb drive. I once watched a CEO spend 12 days arguing about the specific shade of blue for the cover of the annual report, while 82% of his customer support tickets were going unanswered. He wasn’t avoiding work; he was doing the only work that felt controllable. Fixing a customer service department is messy, human, and unpredictable. Choosing a hex code is a definitive victory.

Strategy, in its purest form, should be a philosophy of movement. It should be the way a sailor reads the wind, not a stone tablet. But you can’t sell a philosophy for $312,002. You can, however, sell a 52-page document with glossaries and appendices. We have turned ‘strategic planning’ into a product rather than a process. We treat it like a vintage bottle, something to be displayed and admired for its age and pedigree, rather than something meant to be consumed and integrated into our bloodstreams. Unlike the deep, slow-burning legacy you find in bottles like Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year Old, where the passage of time is a tangible ingredient that creates actual value, the corporate plan attempts to manufacture maturity overnight through sheer volume of text. There is a profound difference between a vision that matures over 12 years and a plan that pretends it can see that far into the fog. One is an investment in character; the other is a desperate attempt to ignore the limits of human foresight.

The Comfort of Controllable Metrics

I find myself back at the mailbox. 102 steps. I wonder if I walk faster, will it be 92? If I take longer strides, can I get it down to 72? This is the same game the strategy committee plays. They adjust the ‘assumptions’ in the Excel model. If they change the projected growth from 2% to 12%, the hockey stick on the graph looks much more impressive. The math works, but the math is untethered from the world where people actually buy things. We are massaging the data to tell us the story we want to hear.

Data Manipulation: Projected Growth Models

Rachel T.J. understands this better than anyone. She knows that if she makes the virtual ceiling look 2 feet higher, the executive will feel more powerful during the call. She is a decorator of the ego.

The Price of Narrative Safety

We have a deep human need for narrative. We cannot stand the idea that our companies, our careers, and our lives are subject to the whims of a chaotic universe. So we write the fiction. We create the ‘Roadmap to Success.’ We draw the lines connecting Point A to Point B, ignoring the 32 sinkholes and 12 mountain ranges that exist in between. And for a moment, after the PDF is unveiled and the applause dies down, we feel safe. We feel in control. That feeling is worth the $502,002. It’s a very expensive form of therapy.

But what if we stopped? What if we admitted that we don’t know what Q4 of next year looks like? What if the strategy was simply a set of 2 or 3 core principles that guided how we react to the unknown, rather than a script for a play that will never be performed? It would require a terrifying level of honesty. It would mean admitting that the 122-page document is actually a security blanket.

Personal Cost of Static Planning

I’ve made mistakes in this arena myself. I remember spending 22 days building a personal ‘five-year plan’ in my twenties… The plan didn’t help me navigate; it just gave me a reason to stop looking at the horizon. I was a victim of my own narrative.

The Cycle Continues

Rachel T.J. finishes her work. The virtual background is uploaded. Tomorrow, the VP will log on. He will sit in his basement, but the 82 people on the call will see him in a room of dark wood and leather-bound wisdom. He will present the 52-page fiction. They will all agree that the future is bright and, more importantly, predictable. They will ignore the 12 flickering red lights on their actual dashboards in favor of the 2 green checkmarks in the presentation.

It’s a cycle that keeps the lights on for virtual background designers and strategy consultants alike. It provides a sense of order in a world that has none. We are all just counting our steps to the mailbox, hoping that if we get the number right, the mail will actually contain what we’re looking for. But perhaps the real strategy isn’t in the counting. Perhaps it’s in the walking. It’s in the ability to adjust your gait when the pavement is slick, to stop and look at a bird for 12 seconds even if it ruins your pace, and to realize that the destination isn’t a point on a map, but the fact that you’re still moving at all.

The Final Query

Is your strategy a compass that helps you navigate the woods, or is it just a very beautiful picture of a forest that you’ve hung over your window so you don’t have to look at the rain?

Most of the time, we’re just building the background. We’re just clicking pixels at 402% zoom, hoping no one notices that the books on the shelf aren’t real, and that we haven’t actually read a single one of them.