Strategic insights, industry trends, and practical advice to help your business grow.
What women's snowboarding at Milano Cortina 2026 reveals about high-stakes business performance. Discover 6 strategic lessons from Olympic pressure.
Read MoreStrategic readiness beats strategic timing. Discover why July - October is Australia's peak window for high quality strategic decisions and year round planning rhythms.
Read MoreLearn why Tic Tac Toe is the clearest model for understanding business strategy, decision-making and game theory in leadership. Discover how dominant moves, sequencing, and clarity trump complexity.
Read MoreExplore how Solitaire strengthens decision making, uncertainty management and strategic sequencing for leaders. Learn to navigate incomplete information and path dependency.
Read MoreDiscover how Chess strengthens multi step decision making, leadership strategy and competitive foresight. Learn why anticipation beats reaction in business.
Read MoreWhat women's snowboarding at Milano Cortina 2026 reveals about high stakes business performance
Tonight in Livigno, twelve of the world's best snowboarders face the Women's Big Air final. After yesterday's qualifications, the field includes returning Olympic champions, teenage prodigies, and athletes fighting back from injuries. With Australia's 53 athlete delegation, our second largest Winter Olympic team, competing across the most geographically dispersed Games in history, the strategic parallels to modern business are impossible to ignore.
British snowboarder Mia Brookes crashed her first run in last night's qualifications, immediately dropping her to near-elimination. Rather than playing it safe on her remaining two runs, she executed an 89.00-point performance followed by a 78.00, securing third place overall and advancing to tonight's final.
Australian organisations routinely mishandle early-stage failures by overcompensating with conservative pivots. When a product launch underperforms, when a market entry stumbles, when a client pitch falls flat, the instinct is damage control rather than disciplined execution of the original strategy. Brookes didn't abandon her technique; she executed it better. Her recovery wasn't about playing defence; it was about offensive precision under intensified pressure.
Audit your organisational response protocols to early stage failures. Are you defaulting to conservative retreat or disciplined refinement? Build recovery playbooks that distinguish between strategic failures (requiring pivot) and execution failures (requiring improved performance of the same approach). Most early failures are execution problems, not strategy problems.
These Games span 22,000 square kilometres across Milan, Cortina, and six other venues, 400km from furthest points. This isn't compromise; it's intentional architectural strategy. Rather than building new infrastructure, organisers leveraged existing world-class facilities across regions, dramatically reducing capital expenditure while maintaining competitive standards.
The centralised headquarters model continues dissolving across Australian enterprise. Organisations clinging to geographic consolidation as a proxy for control are haemorrhaging competitive advantage to distributed-capability competitors. Milano Cortina proves you can deliver world-class outcomes through strategic dispersal, but only if you architect the coordination infrastructure correctly.
Stop defaulting to centralisation. Map where your actual capability clusters exist, client proximity, talent pools, operational efficiencies and assess whether forced consolidation is creating value or destroying it. Strategic dispersal requires investment in coordination systems, not just real estate reduction.
Two time world champion Laura Peel, 36, arrived at Milano Cortina fresh off World Cup gold in January. Six days before the Games opened, she sustained a significant knee injury in training. Rather than withdraw, she's relocated to Livigno with Olympic medical staff, undergoing progressive testing to determine if she can compete in the aerials final on February 17. Her participation remains uncertain.
High performing organisations face continuous disruption to critical talent and resources. The competitive differentiator isn't preventing disruption, it's response architecture when key contributors face unexpected constraints. Peel's team didn't accept binary outcomes (compete or withdraw); they built a phased assessment framework that preserves optionality while managing risk.
Build progressive contingency frameworks for critical roles and projects. When key talent faces constraints, what's your phased assessment process? How do you preserve optionality without delaying decisive action? Create decision trees that account for partial capability, not just full availability or complete absence.
Austria's Anna Gasser, 34, is the only snowboarder from the Sochi 2014 field still competing at elite level. Two-time defending Olympic champion in Big Air, she's competing tonight in what she's announced as her final Olympics. Her progression hasn't plateaued, she continues developing new technical capabilities alongside competitors half her age.
Market relevance is capability dependent, not age dependent. Australian organisations claiming "industry maturity" as justification for declining innovation velocity are confusing organisational inertia with market inevitability. Gasser's sustained dominance stems from continuous technical evolution, not legacy advantage.
Measure organisational learning velocity against market pace of change. When did your executive team last build fundamentally new capability? Are your innovation cycles lengthening while market cycles compress? Sustained performance requires sustained evolution, at every organisational level.
Tonight's final features the top twelve riders from qualifications. Each gets three runs; the best two scores combine for final ranking. Under Livigno's floodlights, with global viewership, there are no warmup runs, no second chances beyond the allocated attempts. One fall can eliminate medal prospects entirely.
Australian businesses increasingly operate in zero error environments, regulatory compliance, cybersecurity, client delivery, public reputation. In these domains, recovery from failure isn't impossible, but the cost compounds exponentially. The strategic imperative isn't risk elimination; it's precision systems that minimise variance in high stakes execution.
Identify your organisational zero error domains where recovery cost exceeds prevention investment. Build rehearsal systems, scenario planning, and progressive stress testing that simulate high pressure conditions before they arrive. Precision under pressure is a manufactured capability, not an inherent trait.
Tonight's final includes Tess Coady (Beijing 2022 slopestyle bronze medallist, qualified 12th) and Mela Stalker (qualified 6th with 165.00 points). Both bring prior Olympic experience to tonight's pressure environment. Their qualification positions don't determine medal outcomes, execution under final pressure does.
Australian organisations frequently over index on current capability rankings and under invest in pressure performance systems. Market share, revenue position, and competitive benchmarks measure current state, not performance under disruption. The Big Air final demonstrates that qualification position matters less than precision execution when stakes escalate.
Audit where your organisation measures current state versus capability under pressure. How do you stress test strategic plans against implementation disruption? Where are you confusing favourable positioning with guaranteed outcomes? Build pressure testing systems that simulate execution under constraint.
Published by
Tic Tac Toe Consulting
Strategic Insight Brief
9 February 2026
Tic Tac Toe Consulting partners with ambitious organisations to build competitive advantage through strategic clarity and operational excellence.
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The game of Tic Tac Toe teaches the foundations of business strategy, which are dominant moves, sequencing, and clarity of decision making. It's the simplest way to understand how leaders win by focusing on what matters.
Tic Tac Toe is a solved game, meaning optimal play guarantees you never lose. Strategy in business follows the same principle: the leader who sees the board clearly makes better decisions.
While many executives get lost in complexity, over analysis, and endless iterations, the best leaders understand that strategic clarity, like Tic Tac Toe, is about seeing the essential moves and executing them flawlessly.
In Tic Tac Toe, taking the centre square is objectively superior. In business, identifying your "centre square" (the dominant strategic move) separates winners from those spinning their wheels on marginal gains.
You don't need a thousand tactics. You need the right sequence of moves. Leaders who chase perfection often miss the game entirely. Simple, sequential execution beats complex plans every time.
The beauty of Tic Tac Toe lies in its simplicity. Business strategy should be the same, that is clear, actionable, and repeatable. When everyone understands the playbook, execution becomes inevitable.
A: It shows the power of clarity, sequencing and optimal decision making. Just like in business, winning at Tic Tac Toe requires understanding the board state, anticipating your opponent's moves, and executing a clear sequence of actions that lead to victory, or at minimum, prevent loss.
The next time you're facing a complex business decision, ask yourself: "What's my centre square?" What's the one move that creates the most leverage? What's the sequence that guarantees we don't lose?
Strategy isn't about having all the answers. It's about seeing the board clearly and making the moves that matter.
At Tic Tac Toe Consulting, we help leaders see the board clearly and make the moves that matter. Let's discuss how we can help your business win.
Schedule a ConsultationSolitaire develops strategic decision making under uncertainty by teaching leaders to sequence moves without full information.
Unlike Chess, Solitaire is an imperfect information game. You can make great decisions and still lose, which is exactly how business works.
In Chess, both players see the entire board. Perfect information means perfect planning is theoretically possible. But in Solitaire, and in business, you're dealt a hand you didn't choose, forced to make decisions with incomplete data, and required to navigate consequences you couldn't have predicted. This is the reality of leadership.
Business leaders face the same constraint: you inherit market conditions, team dynamics, and competitive pressures. Strategy isn't about wishing for better cards, it's about playing the hand you've been dealt with precision and foresight.
In Solitaire, every move matters, but so does every move you don't make. Leaders who rush to act without considering downstream consequences often block their own path to victory. Sometimes the most powerful move is patience.
The order of your decisions shapes your available options more than the odds. One wrong move early can eliminate possibilities later, even if the move seemed reasonable at the time. Strategic sequencing beats statistical optimisation.
Solitaire teaches leaders that timing and sequencing matter more than raw capability. You might have all the right resources, but deploying them in the wrong order can block progress entirely.
Consider a product launch: you might have brilliant marketing, strong sales enablement, and a great product. But if you execute them out of sequence, say launching marketing before your sales team is trained then you've created path dependency that limits future options. The best leaders think like Solitaire players, always considering what their current move enables or constrains downstream.
A: Timing, sequencing, and navigating incomplete information. Solitaire mirrors real leadership challenges: you must make decisions without perfect knowledge, manage constraints you didn't create, and understand that the order of your actions determines what's possible next. Great leaders, like great Solitaire players, think several moves ahead while remaining flexible when new information emerges.
Next time you're paralysed by incomplete data or uncertain outcomes, remember: Solitaire players don't know what card is coming next, but they still win by making the best sequential decisions with the information they have.
Leadership isn't about having perfect information. It's about building the discipline to sequence decisions wisely, exercise restraint when necessary, and accept that sometimes even perfect play leads to imperfect outcomes.
At Tic Tac Toe Consulting, we help leaders make confident decisions even with incomplete information. Let's discuss how to strengthen your strategic sequencing.
Schedule a ConsultationChess builds strategic thinking skills by teaching leaders to plan multiple moves ahead, anticipate competitors, and manage long term positioning.
Chess mirrors business strategy, because your opening determines your options, trade-offs shape your pathway, and timing drives outcomes.
Chess demands multi move thinking. Every piece you move today changes the board state for tomorrow. Leaders who excel at Chess thinking understand that immediate wins often come at the cost of future positioning, and the best strategists optimise for both.
In Chess, your first five moves define the game's trajectory. In business, your early decisions around market positioning, team composition, and capital allocation can create constraints and opportunities that ripple forward. Leaders must choose their "opening" with the end game in mind.
Grandmasters sacrifice pieces to gain position. Good business leaders do the same, investing in R&D that won't pay off for years, ceding market share today to dominate tomorrow, or choosing profitability over growth. The difference between sacrifice and waste is whether it improves your future position.
Chess players don't just respond to their opponent's moves, they force their opponent into predictable patterns. Business leaders who master this skill shape competitive dynamics rather than merely reacting to them. When you think five moves ahead, you control the tempo of the game.
When Chess players think "five moves ahead," they're not predicting the future, they're mapping decision trees. Each move creates branches of possible responses, and skilled players evaluate which branches lead to advantageous positions.
In business, this translates to scenario planning. Before entering a new market, launching a product, or making a key hire, ask:
Leaders who consistently apply this framework make fewer reactive pivots and more deliberate, confident moves.
A: Because it teaches pattern recognition, sequencing, and structured decision-making. Chess forces leaders to balance short-term tactics with long-term strategy, evaluate trade-offs under pressure, and anticipate competitive responses. These skills directly translate to executive decision making, where the ability to think several moves ahead separates reactive managers from strategic leaders.
The next time you're facing a major business decision, pause and apply Chess thinking: What are the next five moves this decision enables or constrains? How will competitors respond? What position will you be in three moves from now?
Great leaders don't just make good decisions—they make decisions that create the conditions for future good decisions. That's Chess. That's strategy.
At Tic Tac Toe Consulting, we help leaders develop the multi move thinking that separates good decisions from great ones. Let's build your strategic playbook.
Schedule a ConsultationStrategic readiness is the organisational condition where leaders have cognitive capacity, clarity of information, alignment of goals, operational stability and the space to think long term.
In strategy conversations, leaders often ask: "When is the best time to start planning?"
After working with CEOs, Boards and Executive teams across industries, I've learned that this is the wrong opening question.
The real determinant of strategy quality isn't 'timing', but rather 'strategic readiness'. This readiness creates an environment for high quality strategic decisions, something the calendar alone cannot guarantee.
Strategic readiness is a distinctive decision making state. It reflects the moment where a business can:
Unlike traditional strategy advice, which focuses on scheduling annual offsites or planning around budget deadlines, strategic readiness recognises that good strategy depends on the quality of the environment and not the date.
While strategy can occur at any time, most Australian businesses consistently reach peak strategic readiness between July and October. Here's why that window works so reliably:
After June 30, many organisations finally have full year performance results. This enables truthful, grounded conversations essential for strategic clarity.
Planning before EOFY forces strategy into pre-existing budget envelopes. Planning in July - October gives leaders the freedom to reshape priorities, funding and resource allocation.
July - October is when leaders have altitude and mental space for horizon thinking:
When strategy is finalised by October:
This sequencing dramatically improves delivery outcomes.
High performing businesses use a structured, readiness aligned rhythm rather than relying on a single annual workshop. Our Strategic Readiness Framework includes four components:
This is the deep decision window: ambition, trade-offs, initiative sequencing and strategic priorities.
These recalibrate assumptions, risks, insights and resource allocation. It is where leaders test whether strategy is still the right strategy.
A governance rhythm that preserves momentum and resolves friction early.
Leaders keep active awareness of emerging risks, new opportunities and market shifts.
This readiness based operating system transforms strategy from an event into an organisational muscle.
Traditional strategy consultants often promote a generic idea: "The right time to plan is now."
It's catchy, but not particularly useful. It ignores organisational psychology, data availability and decision-making conditions.
Our view is more honest and more aligned to reality: Strategic readiness beats strategic timing. The best strategy emerges when the organisation is ready to think boldly, not when the calendar demands it.
A: July - October, when businesses reach peak strategic readiness with full year data and leadership bandwidth.
A: The organisational state where leaders have clarity, capacity and alignment to make high quality strategic decisions.
A: Results are incomplete, budget pressure is high and decisions become tactical.
A: Yes. Effective strategy includes an annual reset, quarterly reviews and ongoing strategic scanning.
At TicTacToe Consulting, we help leaders create the conditions for high quality strategic decisions. Let's discuss your strategic planning rhythm and readiness.
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