The first question I ask when leading a strategy development session is: “Which profitable business line do you intend to cut to make room for growth?”

Most leaders are not expecting that question.

One CEO I work with answered it. He eliminated his company’s commodity product line — which accounted for half of total sales revenue. His sales managers were horrified. Customers would leave. Quotas would collapse. Jobs would go.

He cut it anyway. Within six months, customers had migrated naturally to the company’s higher-value products.

Revenue dropped forty percent. Profit doubled.

That is what bold strategy looks like in practice.

This is one of the many provocative ideas in my new book, Strategy On Your Own Terms.

Staying oriented even when the world is inverted.

Today I want to talk about strategy. Specifically, I want to talk about a mistake I see leaders make constantly when they set strategic goals — and I’m going to use a somewhat unusual teacher to make my point: a flight instructor from the early days of jet aviation.

Bear with me. This is going somewhere useful.