The Rush to Execute
Time pressure drives companies to fast-track strategy development, viewing assumption testing as an unnecessary delay. Executive teams, eager to show progress to boards and investors, often conflate speed with decisiveness. Many times, executive teams are too busy doing and fail to carve out enough time for thinking. This urgency creates a false choice between thorough validation and timely execution, leading to strategies built on untested hypotheses.
Protecting Competitive Advantage
Many organizations resist testing assumptions externally, fearing they'll telegraph strategic intentions to competitors. This secrecy, while somewhat understandable, prevents companies from gathering the market intelligence and feedback needed to refine their approach, ultimately weakening the very competitive position they seek to protect.
The "Update Trap"
When strategies are positioned as mere updates to existing approaches, leadership teams assume prior assumptions still hold. This incremental mindset discourages fundamental questioning of market dynamics, customer needs, or competitive landscapes that may have shifted significantly. This is perhaps the most perverse trap because it is likely that neither the effectiveness of the existing strategy nor the assumptions on which they were based were fully validated.
The Accountability Gap
Perhaps most problematic is when leadership teams haven't rigorously defined their strategic assumptions at all. Without explicit articulation of what must be true for success, there's nothing to test. Only a few formally identify who is the final arbiter of what assumptions are acceptable. Often, hazy assumptions render accountability moot.
A Recent Example
Netflix's international expansion strategy initially struggled because they assumed content preferences would be relatively similar across markets. In 2023-2024, they implemented a more systematic validation approach, explicitly testing assumptions about content preferences in new markets before full-scale entry, establishing clear metrics for when local content investment was warranted, and creating a structured process for incorporating these insights into their content strategy. Competitors who failed to validate their assumptions about international content preferences invested heavily in content with limited appeal in key growth markets.
The Second Opinion Solution
This is precisely where competent external strategy advisors prove invaluable. They force accountability by identifying blind spots, challenging sacred assumptions, and designing validation frameworks that internal teams often resist implementing. Some high-level recommendations:
- Explicitly document the 3-5 most critical assumptions underlying your strategy and design specific tests for each
- Create a regular assumption review process where evidence contradicting strategic assumptions is actively sought and discussed
- Establish clear thresholds for when assumption validation results should trigger strategic adjustments
When betting the company on a strategic direction, being shy or skittish about external validation is a luxury you can't afford. Get that second opinion—your strategy's success depends on it.