Most strategies do not fail suddenly. They fail through drift.
Assumptions change. Conditions shift. Capabilities erode or harden in unexpected ways. The strategy remains formally intact while its logic quietly weakens. Execution becomes harder, decisions feel less coherent, and leaders compensate rather than confront the cause.
A self-healing strategy is designed to prevent that drift from going unnoticed. It does not avoid commitment. It makes commitment explicit. Clear choices about where to play, how to win, and which tradeoffs matter are the starting point, not the conclusion.
What distinguishes a self-healing strategy is disciplined assumption work.
Every strategy depends on conditions being true. When those conditions are implicit, failure appears as surprise. When they are explicit, failure appears as information.
The discipline of What would have to be true? turns belief into conditions and defines what must be monitored. Scenarios are then used not to predict outcomes, but to stress-test assumptions and identify where strain would first appear.
When assumptions weaken, the strategy does not collapse. It adapts deliberately, before coherence breaks.
In an environment shaped by technological change, regulatory uncertainty, and accelerating competition, the most dangerous strategy is not one that turns out to be wrong. It is one that cannot recognize that it is becoming wrong.
Self-healing strategies do not eliminate uncertainty. They reduce strategic surprise.