The Strategy Delusion: Build what matters before AI Breaks Everything (Earn the Seat: A Data Leadership Series)

By Carl Smith

The Strategy Delusion: Build What Matters Before AI Breaks Everything

Most data strategies are theatre. Slide decks full of pillars, maturity curves, and hexagons that impress the steering group but achieve nothing in practice. They don't protect margin. They don't drive growth. And they certainly don't hold up when the CEO asks about AI.

This book exposes the delusion and gives you the playbook to fix it.

Through Jo's journey, a composite of real-world leaders, you'll see how strategy theatre unfolds: grand visions with no delivery, frameworks nobody uses, AI hype running ahead of reality. And you'll learn how to replace the noise with moves that actually land in the boardroom.

What you'll get inside:

How to spot strategy theatre and kill it before it wastes more time and budget.

Tools to frame every initiative in boardroom currency: money, risk, growth.

A field-tested method to translate governance into strategy that sticks.

Tactics to excite the CEO about AI while calming the CFO and keeping Legal off your back.

Scripts, checklists, and framing devices you can use tomorrow.

This is not another framework. It's not a consultant's maturity model. It's a survival guide for leaders who need to prove value fast, build credibility, and avoid getting steamrolled by AI hype.

Whether you're a Chief Data Officer, a digital leader, or the unlucky soul told to "sort out the data mess," The Strategy Delusion will help you stop performing strategy and start delivering it.

Because if your strategy can't survive the CFO's question, "what does this mean in cash?" you don't have a strategy. You have a delusion.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GD1Z2Y1M
• ISBN13: 9798265941794
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 147 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"