Why military commander plan better strategy than business leader?

First, strategy originates from warfare.

In warfare, the playing field is given, not chosen. It’s the existing terrain or topography that no one can change. Commanders don’t control the field; they control how they plan actions, allocate resources, and coordinate logistics around it.

In warfare, the topography is the strategy’s foundation, commanders plan around it.

In business, you can’t follow the same playbook. Nearly 90% of strategic plans fail.

That’s because, unlike warfare, you don’t have a fixed, visible terrain, something designed and laid out in one place to plan how you’ll win. Instead, you have scattered business components. They don’t naturally reveal how they connect, compete, or create advantage. You don't see the topology.

In business strategy:

You have to visualize the right components of your business that relate to your area of interest or the change you need to make. Then, analyze their current situation.

Somewhere within that analysis, you’ll discover areas that require strategic design, places where you must create a new strategy and then plan your resource allocation accordingly.

In business you need to find out your topography, design it and then plan how things will take place. See the difference why strategic plan are executable in warfare and not in business.

The lesson, never plan a strategy but rather design it. In order for you to design, you have to explore the current state of topic area.

The concept I have arrived to is a game changer and I hope to see more small and medium businesses adopting this idea to win and stay relevant.