In Sam Howe Verhovek’s Jet Age, there’s a moment that has stuck with me since I first read it. A young pilot named Alvin “Tex” Johnston — who would go on to become Boeing’s legendary test pilot — is being taught by flight instructor Toy Franklin. Franklin pulls Johnston away from the mechanics of flying and says something that cuts to the heart of what control actually means:
*”Don’t think about the mechanics of moving the rudder or the ailerons. Think in terms of pressure. Right and left pressure on the rudder pedals for directional control. Side pressure on the stick for a roll. Fore-and-aft pressure to move the nose toward you or away. Don’t think nose up, nose down. That way, when you get into aerobatics and find yourself on your back, you won’t be confused.”
Think in terms of pressure. Not mechanics.
I’ve been thinking about strategy for a long time, and I’ve come to believe that this single distinction — pressure versus mechanics — explains why most strategic goals collapse before execution ever gets off the
The China Market Survey
Here’s a concrete example. A leadership team I worked with set a strategic goal: “Conduct a China market survey.” They budgeted for it, assigned ownership, and put it on the roadmap. Three months later, access to the research firm they’d contracted fell through. The goal was dead — and with it, the team’s sense of direction.
Now rewrite that goal: “Improve our understanding of the China market.”
Same intent. Completely different relationship to adversity. When the survey falls apart, the mechanic-goal leader is lost because the goal *was* the survey. The pressure-goal leader just asks: what else might get us there? A competitor analysis. Customer interviews. A pilot partnership. The disruption becomes information, not defeat.
“Conduct a China market survey” is a mechanic. “Improve our understanding of the China market” is pressure — a direction you’re applying, an outcome you’re pursuing. The distinction sounds subtle. The operational difference is enormous.
Implementation Is Always Aerobatic
Here’s what every experienced leader knows but strategy documents rarely acknowledge: implementation is never linear. Markets shift mid-year. A key competitor makes a surprise move. Your best regional director takes another offer. A technology you didn’t see coming changes the economics of your whole category.
If your strategic goals are mechanics — a list of actions to complete — then every disruption disorients you. The goal was the action, and the action is no longer possible, so now what?
If your strategic goals are pressure — directions you’re committed to, outcomes you intend to reach — then disruptions are just new information. The destination hasn’t moved. The route has. Franklin’s advice to Johnston was precisely about this: when you’re on your back in aerobatics, if you’ve been thinking “stick back means nose up,” you will pull the wrong way. But if you’ve been thinking “fore pressure moves the nose toward me,” orientation is irrelevant. You still know what to do.
Most organizations write strategy for calm air. The problem is that calm air is the exception, not the rule.
The Argument Behind the Argument
There’s a second failure mode that mechanics-as-goals enable, and it lives inside the team itself.
I once had an argument with my wife about directions. We were lost, disagreeing about which way to turn — and it took us embarrassingly long to realize we each had a different destination in mind. We weren’t arguing about navigation. We were arguing past each other because we’d never aligned on where we were going.
This happens in organizations constantly. Teams argue about method — which initiative to fund, which market to prioritize, which hire to make — without realizing the argument is actually about goals. They’ve never agreed on the destination. So the debate about means is endless because there’s no shared reference point to resolve it.
When strategic goals are written as mechanics, this problem gets baked in. The goal *is* the method, so disagreement about method is disagreement about the goal itself. Writing goals as intended outcomes — as direction and pressure — forces the team to align on destination before anyone starts debating route. That alignment alone eliminates a category of organizational friction that most leaders have just accepted as normal.
A Diagnostic Test
Here’s a quick way to audit your own strategic goals. Ask yourself: is this a direction, or is it a mechanic?
“Increase revenue by twenty percent” — direction. “Launch a new product line by Q3” — mechanic. “Enter the Southeast Asian market” — direction. “Hire a Southeast Asia regional director” — mechanic. “Become the preferred partner for mid-market companies” — direction. “Attend three industry trade shows this year” — mechanic.
Notice the pattern. Mechanics describe actions. They belong in an execution plan. Strategy is about direction — the outcomes you’re committed to creating, the positions you intend to occupy, the value you’re determined to deliver. If your strategic goals read like a project task list, you don’t have a strategy. You have a schedule.
Actions are how you get there. Strategy is where you’re going. Keep them in separate documents, and the difference will become viscerally clear.
What Strategy Reviews Are Actually For
There’s one more place this distinction matters, and it’s often the most neglected: the strategy review itself.
Most organizations use strategy reviews to check whether the mechanics got done. Did we launch the product? Did we complete the survey? Did we hire the director? Red, yellow, green. Done or not done.
What they’re not doing is asking the harder question: are the assumptions beneath our goals still true?
A goal written as direction — “improve our understanding of the China market” — implicitly asks this question at every review. Is the China market still a priority? Has our competitive position there changed? Has the political environment shifted the risk calculus? You can’t just check a box on a direction. You have to think.
A goal written as a mechanic — “conduct a China market survey” — lets you check the box and move on, even if everything beneath it has changed. Organizations that track only KPI mechanics miss the moment when their foundational assumptions quietly stopped being true. They hit a wall and can’t explain why. The actions all got done. The strategy still failed.
The Kind of Strategist Worth Being
The best strategists I’ve worked with share a particular quality: they are deeply committed to outcomes and deeply flexible about methods. They hold their destination with conviction and their route with open hands.
That’s what Franklin was teaching Johnston. Not just a flying technique. A posture — a way of staying oriented when everything else is turning.
So here’s the question I’ll leave with you: look at your strategic goals right now. Do they define where you’re going — the outcomes you’re committed to, the value you intend to create, the position you mean to occupy? Or do they just describe what you’re doing next?
If you find yourself on your back, will you still know which way to push?
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