Why Good Strategies Lose Momentum Before the Numbers Show It
New book Strategic Drag, drawing on research and conversations involving 237 chief executives and years of advising CEOs, reveals the hidden psychology that slows strategy execution and what CEOs can change.
Why do good strategies really fail? A strategy can be commercially sound, supported by an experienced leadership team and apparently embraced throughout an organisation and still lose momentum. The explanation often lies not in the strategy itself, but in the hidden psychology of the people responsible for delivering it.
In Strategic Drag, confidential CEO adviser Roger E Jones, whose work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, draws on private interviews with 237 chief executives to examine why that happens.
The book explores psychodynamics: the often unconscious responses to authority, uncertainty and status that shape commitment and ownership. It helps CEOs understand how their organisation really operates beneath the numbers and where they can intervene.
Its five stages—Surface, Drift, Strain, Exposed and Reckoning—trace a progression from early friction to missed targets, programme delays and board scrutiny. By the final stage, Jones writes: “You have moved from managing execution to explaining it.”
Across 26 short chapters and seven letters to a chief executive, Jones examines why deference can resemble trust and extra reporting can conceal avoided choices. Readers are prompted to ask what colleagues remain unconvinced about, resolve competing priorities and return decisions to those who should own them.
For leaders preparing 2027 plans amid economic and geopolitical uncertainty, the book addresses a practical priority: ensuring that pressure to deliver does not itself undermine execution.
While conventional business strategy books focus on frameworks, governance and operating rhythms, Strategic Drag addresses the human variable they miss: the psychological conditions that dictate whether agreed intentions survive pressure and create momentum.
Jones also uses his novice experience of stand-up comedy to illustrate how people read authority, tension and unspoken signals.
Dr Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 executive coach and New York Times bestselling author, says Jones offers chief executives “the ability to see the hidden psychological dynamics that accelerate or derail strategy execution”.
Strategic Drag: Why Strategy Execution Slows – and What the Most Self-Aware CEOs See Beneath the Numbers
Author: Roger E Jones
Publisher: Vantage Hill Press
Published: June 2026
Paperback | 158 pages | ISBN 978-1066688999 | £16.99 / US$21.99
Available on Amazon worldwide: geni.us/strategicdrag
Roger E Jones is a London-based confidential adviser to chief executives, specialising in helping them recognise and overcome strategic drag. His work with chief executives and senior leaders spans some 25 years and follows an earlier corporate career in senior roles. He has written for Harvard Business Review, including “What CEOs Are Afraid Of”, and for INSEAD Knowledge. His work has also been featured in The Sunday Times and the Financial Times. He holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and is a graduate of INSEAD’s Executive Master in Consulting and Coaching for Change, a programme grounded in clinical organisational psychology. He has worked in more than 40 countries and lived in four.
