We are essentially linear creatures. Whether this is the native mode of humanity, or whether it is the result of acculturation, is open to question. Western society fosters and rewards linear behavior and performance from kindergarten on. Our educational system teaches and grades on it; our social programs are designed and executed on it; and it drives decisions throughout most government, non-government, and commercial settings.

The strategic context for business has changed radically, with old patterns of power fracturing along new lines. Culture itself is passing through a new time, and the journey promises to be more transformative than the industrial revolution at the turn of the century, and the agrarian revolution sparked by the development of agriculture in the Neolithic Age. We are now facing multiple shifting paradigms at a global system level, and it calls for a completely different mode of thinking, a fresh approach to growth and competition defined in 21^st-century terms.

Across industries, governments and institutional settings, there is widespread error confusing tactics with strategy. Strategy is the relationship between means and objectives. It answers three questions:

1. Where do we go?
2. How do we get there?
3. How much will it cost?

It is an inherently creative process, shaped as a vision interacts with its operating environment. Strategy design is roughly similar to Michelangelo’s approach to sculpture: he understood his task as finding the form hidden in the block of marble.