Classic strategy works when you can predict where the industry is going and plan accordingly. Most leaders discover at some point that they can't.
Professors Reeves, Loves, and Tillmanns laid out a more complete map in Your Strategy Needs a Strategy. They argue that four strategic paths exist — classic, adaptive, shaping, and visionary — and which one fits your company depends on two variables: predictability (how well you can forecast what comes next) and malleability (how much you and your competitors can actually shape the industry itself).
Classic is the baseline. When an industry is stable and foreseeable, you analyze, plan, execute. Part II covered that ground. But when predictability drops or malleability rises, the other three paths come into play.
Adaptive: short plans, fast moves
Adaptive strategy shares the classic approach's analytical rigor, but the planning window is short and the plan changes—quickly and without delay.
Being adaptive means the strategist is watching the competitive landscape constantly, looking for shifts in customer behavior, market conditions, and competitive encroachment. When something changes, the response is immediate: divest an asset that's become a liability, reallocate resources, adjust the product mix.
Adaptive organizations run leaner than optimized classics. That's intentional. Speed matters more than efficiency here. An adaptive strategist recommends the device that's 80% as capable as the market leader at one-third the price—not because they're cutting corners, but because the savings fund the next move. Like a ship's captain reading wind changes, the adaptive strategist makes course corrections before the storm arrives, not after.
Expect some inefficiency. That's the trade-off for being able to pivot before a competitor consolidates their lead.
Shaping: building the ecosystem before anyone else does
Shaping is adaptive but more volatile—and higher stakes. The planning windows are even shorter because the landscape is still being formed. There's no established ecosystem to compete within. You have to build one.
When Apple released the iPod in late 2001, the portable music category already existed—Sony created it with the Walkman in 1979. But Apple didn't just enter the category; it rebuilt it. Hundreds, then thousands, of songs on a single device instead of one CD's worth. And iTunes gave consumers individual songs, albums, and audiobooks they could sync to their device.[i] Apple didn't just sell hardware; it created the infrastructure for how people would buy and consume music.
That's shaping. You're marshaling significant resources behind a product or service without an ecosystem, and you're creating that ecosystem as you go. The risk is real. So is the reward.
Visionary: first of its kind
Visionary strategy is the rarest and highest-risk path. There's no category to enter—you're creating one.
When Apple introduced the all-screen iPhone in 2007, nothing like it existed.[ii] It disrupted mobile communications, the music player market, the camera industry, and the computing industry simultaneously. There was no blueprint, no comparable to benchmark against, no customer base already primed for it. Customers needed guidance on what this thing even was.
Visionary strategy requires careful, deliberate planning—not because the future is predictable, but because you have to create the conditions for adoption from scratch. You're not competing on price or features. You're competing against inertia.
Choosing the right path
The four strategy types aren't rungs on a ladder. You don't graduate from classic to visionary. You read the industry:
- High predictability, low malleability → classic
- Low predictability, low malleability → adaptive
- Low predictability, high malleability → shaping
- Creating an entirely new market → visionary
Most leaders default to classic because it feels rigorous and manageable. But applying a classic strategy to an unpredictable industry is like navigating by a map of a city that no longer exists—the framework is solid, the territory has moved on.
Knowing which environment you're actually operating in is the strategic decision. Everything else follows from that.