More takeaways from The Strategy Design Festival
In the first post from the Strategy Design Festival, we argued that strategy needs to be treated as a verb, not a document. In the second, we suggested that most “theories of change” are really untested stories, and offered ways to turn them into living hypotheses. This third piece zooms in on a thread that ran underneath both: strategy is always about power, whether we name it or not.
When we talk about “doing strategy”, we often reach for neutral language: goals, outcomes, indicators, priorities. It can sound like a tidy technical exercise in choosing the best plan.
But beneath every strategy conversation sits a harder question: who gets to decide what matters, for whom, and at what risk?
At the Strategy Design Festival, this was one of the clearest patterns across sessions. Organisations with very different missions kept circling back to the same tension: they were serious about participation and equity in their work, but their strategies and processes still concentrated power in a small group.
This post is about that gap – and what shifts when we treat strategy design itself as work on power.
Where power hides in strategy processes
If you read most strategy documents, you’ll see plenty about shifting power out there – challenging governments, corporations or dominant narratives. What usually stays implicit is the power here: how decisions are made within the organisation, and whose priorities and well-being those decisions are built around.
That internal power shows up in almost every design choice you make, for example:
- Who is in the room when strategy is discussed – and who isn’t.
- Whose data and stories define “the problem” and what counts as evidence.
- Whose risks are taken seriously, and whose are treated as acceptable collateral.
- Who has veto power over the final decisions.
At the Festival, people named familiar patterns:
- Strategies written largely by senior teams or consultants, then “consulted on” with staff and communities towards the end.
- Boards that frame risk purely in terms of reputation and funding, not the risks borne by communities.
- Participation that is real in programme design, but largely symbolic in strategic planning.
On paper, these processes can look participatory. In practice, they often leave existing hierarchies untouched.
That gap matters. When an organisation sets out to challenge external power without paying attention to its own internal power imbalances, it creates friction: mixed messages, quiet cynicism, and, over time, burnout among the people holding the tension between stated values and lived reality.
A simple power lens for your next strategy process
You don’t need a new framework to start seeing power more clearly. A small set of questions can already change how you design your next round of strategy work.
Try these with your team before you launch the process:
- Power over what?
What are the key decisions this strategy process will shape – funding, programmes, partnerships, narratives, internal priorities? Whose lives will those decisions affect most?
- Power for whom?
Whose interests and experiences are we centring as we do this work – board, staff, communities, specific partners? Who tends to be an afterthought?
- Power with whom?
Who do we need to be “in the room” (literally or metaphorically) if this is going to be honest and useful? What would it take to make their participation real rather than token?
Even asking these questions out loud can surface assumptions you’ve been carrying quietly. They don’t magically fix the power imbalances in and around your organisation, but they make them visible enough to work with.
There’s also a wider ecosystem question that often gets missed. Many organisations don’t spend enough time mapping different domains of power – policy, narrative, digital, community organising, resourcing – and noticing where their real strengths lie. If you try to act like you can (or should) do everything, you end up overstretched internally and competing with potential allies. A more honest power analysis can show where you are best placed to push, and where you need to work in coalition with organisations that hold more power in other domains.
Designing small but real shifts in power
One trap people named at the Festival was “all or nothing” thinking. If we can’t overhaul our governance model or invite everyone into every conversation, it feels like we’re not really shifting power.
A more realistic approach is to look for specific, deliberate shifts in how the strategy process works, such as:
- Changing who frames the questions. Instead of the senior team deciding the strategic questions, ask staff or community partners to co‑define them.
- Sharing agenda‑setting. Use participatory methods (surveys, listening sessions, small group conversations) to shape what goes on the strategy agenda, not just to react to a draft.
- Opening up what “risk” means. Include people who live with the consequences of your work when you talk about risk and trade‑offs, not just those who sign off on budgets.
These are not cosmetic tweaks. Over time, they change who has influence over your organisation’s direction, and how honest your strategy can be about the systems you’re operating in.
Power, uncertainty and accountability
Power shows up most sharply when things are uncertain or contested.
When context shifts fast – funding cuts, political backlash, new opportunities – organisations often “pull strategy up” to a smaller group in the name of speed or safety. Decisions move to a core circle, and everyone else is informed after the fact.
Sometimes that’s necessary. But it also raises questions:
- Who gets to decide that we’re in “crisis mode”?
- Whose priorities are protected first when resources get tight?
- What accountability do we hold to the communities we work with when we pivot?
Being explicit about these dynamics doesn’t slow you down; it helps you act with more integrity. A power‑aware strategy process can say, “Given the pressures we’re under, here’s how we’re making choices – and here’s who we’re accountable to as we do it.”
How we’ll work on this in the Strategy Design Cohort
If you recognise these tensions in your own organisation, you’re not alone. They’re exactly what we’ll be working on in the Strategy Design: a cohort for civil society leaders – a 6‑session online programme for NGOs, charities and civil society organisations who want their strategy work to match their values.
In the cohort, we’ll:
- Map where power currently sits in your strategy processes – and where it needs to shift.
- Design concrete changes to who is involved, how questions are framed, and how decisions are made.
- Build “power checks” into your ongoing strategy rhythms, so this isn’t a one‑off exercise.
If this is a live issue for you, this post can be a starting point for conversations with your team: where does power currently sit in your strategy work, and what’s one small but real shift you could make in the next round?
