Why the First Test of Strategy is Clarity
On the eve of a battle, Napoleon is said to have walked the lines and stopped an ordinary soldier, the lowest-ranking man he could find. He would ask him a simple question: what is our objective tomorrow?
If the soldier could answer, the objective was clear. If he could not, failure could be fatal.
The story is almost certainly apocryphal. It survives because it captures a truth that experienced leaders recognize immediately. Clarity is not what is declared at the top. It is what is understood at the edge, where decisions are made and actions unfold.
That same test, carried from the battlefield to the factory floor, is far more revealing than any strategy deck.
A Simple Question
The most revealing moment in Kodak’s recent history did not involve a new product, a restructuring plan, or a capital maneuver. It began with a similar question from its chief executive: what does Kodak do?
Jim Continenza asked his executive team that question early in his tenure. He did not get a clear answer.
That exchange tells you almost everything about the company he inherited. Kodak was not short of assets, history, or technical capability. It was short of clarity. The organization had become so layered, so internally absorbed, that it could no longer articulate its own purpose in plain terms. Strategy had dissolved into activity. Identity had fractured into functions.
A Common Leadership Failure
This is not a Kodak problem. It is a leadership problem that surfaces in every complex organization at some point in its life cycle. Companies grow, diversify, acquire, reorganize. Over time, they accumulate businesses, capabilities, and internal narratives that no longer cohere. The center loosens. Ask ten executives what the company does and you will hear ten variations, each defensible, none decisive.
Continenza understood that this was not a communications issue. It was a strategic failure. If leadership cannot answer a basic question about the enterprise, the organization cannot act with focus. Decisions slow. Priorities compete. Resources scatter. The business becomes reactive, then defensive.
The discipline he reintroduced was fundamental. Define, in shared terms, who we are, what we do, and why it matters.
Defining the Business
In Kodak’s case, that clarity took shape around a narrower, more grounded definition of the business. Commercial printing. Advanced materials and chemicals. Specific capabilities, tied to real markets, with a credible path to revenue. The company stopped trying to be the ghost of its former self and began to operate as the business it actually was.
This shift did more than tidy up messaging. It changed how the company ran. Divisions were separated and given clear mandates. Decision-making was concentrated. The sprawling bureaucracy, once reflected in thousands of job titles and endless internal consultation, gave way to a tighter operating model. Clarity at the top translated into speed and accountability throughout the system.
That is the practical value of brand positioning when it is treated as strategy rather than language. It aligns an organization around a shared understanding of reality. It sets boundaries. It makes trade-offs visible. It gives leaders a basis for saying no.
The Harder Truth
The Kodak example also underscores a more uncomfortable truth. Many companies avoid this question because it forces a confrontation with what they are not. It exposes legacy businesses that no longer fit. It reveals investments that lack a clear role. It challenges internal power structures built around outdated definitions of the company.
Continenza did not treat the question as rhetorical. He treated it as diagnostic. The absence of a clear answer was evidence of a deeper structural problem, one that required simplification, focus, and a reset of expectations.
Semantic Inflation
There is a temptation, especially in large organizations, to replace this clarity with language that sounds expansive and sophisticated. Mission statements stretch to accommodate every stakeholder. Positioning statements try to capture every capability. The result is a kind of semantic inflation, where the company appears to do everything and therefore stands for nothing.
A disciplined answer to “What do we do?” resists that impulse. It is specific enough to guide decisions and narrow enough to exclude distractions. It reflects the business as it is, not as it once was or hopes to be.
For leadership teams, the test is straightforward. Ask the question. Listen carefully to the answers. If they diverge, if they hedge, if they rely on jargon, you are not dealing with a messaging gap. You are looking at a lack of shared strategic understanding.
A Turning Point
Kodak’s turnaround is still a work in progress. Its financial challenges have not disappeared. But the act of forcing that question into the open marked a turning point. It re-established a center of gravity for the company.
Clarity is not cosmetic. It is operational. It is the difference between an organization that moves with intent and one that drifts through its own complexity.
The question remains as sharp as ever: What does your company do? If the answer is not immediate, precise, and shared, the work has not yet begun.
BrandingBusiness is a global B2B branding agency dedicated to building powerfully effective B2B brands that lead with clarity and perform with purpose. For more than 30 years, we have helped forward-looking clients to navigate change, enter new markets, unify cultures, and drive sustainable momentum toward their growth plans.