How a CEO job ad sent me back to strategy
A buzzword-filled job description reminded me why clarity matters.
I had planned to write about something completely different this week. I was ready to move on from strategy, quadrants, and all the talk about clarity. But then something happened that pulled me right back in.
A LinkedIn post of mine suddenly took off. Not because I wrote something brilliant, but because LinkedIn showed me a CEO job ad so dense in corporate poetry that my brain simply refused to process it. I shared it with a few honest sentences, mostly out of disbelief. And people reacted. Apparently a lot of us are tired of reading words that don’t say anything.
That moment made me realise something.
Even when I try to leave strategy behind for a week, it finds its way back in.
Because the real theme underneath all of this is communication.
How we explain what we do.
How we describe our value.
How we write strategy, hiring ads, culture documents, investor updates.
How we try to give clarity inside organisations, and often fail.
If you’ve been following my writing for a while, you’ll know I’ve written often about the four quadrants of supply and demand. How companies usually sit in the top-right quadrant, fighting each other with the same offerings, the same prices, and the same campaigns. It’s a crowded battlefield, a zero-sum game. And then, rarely, a company finds a way to shift downwards, into a quieter quadrant where they aren’t compared to anyone.
Every time I explain this visually, people get it instantly.
Four boxes. One map. One choice.
You can see it.
Which brings me back to the CEO job ad.
A mentor once told me something that has become a guiding rule for me.
People only understand what they can visualise.
If you can’t create a picture in someone’s mind, you can’t expect them to understand anything you say.
And this is exactly where most organisational communication collapses.
Not because people are stupid.
But because our language fails to produce pictures.
This is why so many strategies sound identical.
“We will be the leading provider…”
“We will create excellent value for customers and employees…”
“We will deliver excellence, innovation, and collaboration…”
You read it, but nothing forms in your mind.
No scene, no decision, no customer, no trade-off, no consequence.
Just a soft cloud of ambition floating above everyone’s heads.
The LinkedIn job ad was the same problem in a funnier outfit. Full of words, empty of meaning. No CEO. no role. no Monday morning at 09.00.
Clarity is rare because it demands a real argument. Not more data. not more slides.
A simple, strong argument that forces choice.
Clarity forces choice.
Choice forces focus.
Focus forces accountability.
And organisations are often allergic to all three.
When I work with founders and leadership teams, the breakthrough moment rarely comes from frameworks or long discussions. It comes from saying something in a way that suddenly creates a picture in everyone’s mind. A moment where people stop, nod, and say “now I see it”.
Once you see something, you can act on it.
Before that, you are only moving through fog.
So even though I had planned to write about a different topic today, this accidental viral post reminded me that all roads lead back to the same idea.
A company is only as strong as its ability to create shared pictures in people’s minds.
Whether you are writing strategy, describing your value proposition, onboarding new hires, defining culture, or posting a job ad for a CEO, the same rule applies.
If they can’t see it.
They can’t follow it.
Let me get one thing out of the way. Yes, I’m writing a whole newsletter about a job ad. No, I’m not applying for anything. I’m just a curious bystander who occasionally peeks at what’s moving in the corner of my screen. :)
My day job is far more fun: helping startups, scaleups, and accelerators find strategic clarity, sharpen their direction, and turn limited runway into real progress.
I am in the process pf building my reader base and therefore all shares are very much appreciated.