Reset Your Strategy: 6 Signs that It is Time

Signs That It’s Time to Reset Your Strategy
Even the most effective strategy retreat outcomes can lose their impact. Market conditions shift, customer expectations evolve, and internal dynamics fluctuate. Leaders who fail to recognize when their strategy has stagnated risk missed opportunities, declining performance, and frustrated teams. The ability to identify when it’s time to reset your strategy is a hallmark of high performing leadership teams.

Top 6 Signs That It’s Time to Reset Your Strategy
A thoughtful, well-timed reset ensures that strategy remains not just a plan on paper, but a believable living guide for achieving meaningful results.  Here are the key signs that it may be time to take a fresh look at your strategy.

1. Declining Performance Metrics
   When revenue growth slows, profit margins shrink, or key strategy performance indicators consistently miss targets, it may be more than just a temporary setback. Project postmortem analyses show that persistent underperformance often signals that the current strategy is misaligned with your culture or market realities.

   What to Do:
   Regularly link strategy to measurable outcomes and adjust strategies as necessary.

2. Shifts in Market Dynamics
   Markets rarely remain static. New competitors, changing customer preferences, technological innovations, and regulatory changes can quickly erode strategy assumptions. If your products or services are losing relevance or competitors are consistently outpacing you, change management consulting experts know that it’s time to re-evaluate.

   What to Do:
   Be willing to pivot when environmental changes outpace internal adaptation.

3. Strategic Objectives No Longer Inspire Action
   A clear strategy should not only guide decisions but also energize the organization. When employees appear disengaged or unclear about strategic priorities, it may indicate that your strategic objectives have lost their clarity or relevance.

   What to Do:
   Ensure the organization’s mission is deeply connected to the realities of the market.

4. Increasing Operational Complexity Without Results
   Sometimes, organizations respond to stagnation by layering more initiatives, creating complex processes, or implementing additional tools. However, we know from action learning leadership research that if complexity increases without corresponding gains, it signals that the strategy may need simplification or refocusing.

   What to Do:
   Focus on a “critical few” priorities that drive impact, rather than spreading resources thinly across too many initiatives.

5. Leadership Disagreement on Priorities
   Healthy debate is essential, but persistent misalignment among senior leaders often points to a strategic disconnect. When leadership teams cannot agree on direction, resource allocation, or key initiatives, it’s a strong indication that the strategy is no longer coherent or compelling.

   What to Do:
   Re-establish senior leadership team alignment and create a unified focus for the organization.

6. Customers Are Signaling Change
   Customer feedback — both explicit and implicit — is one of the clearest indicators of strategic misalignment. Declining satisfaction scores, increasing churn, or emerging complaints about relevance, quality, or service levels suggest that your strategy may not be addressing customer needs effectively.

   What to Do:
   Actively monitor and respond to customer signals.

The Bottom Line
Recognizing the signs that it’s time to reset your strategy is not a weakness — it’s strategic foresight. Organizations that embrace strategic resets proactively are more agile, resilient, and capable of sustaining long-term success. Ignoring these signals, by contrast, can lead to stagnation and competitive decline.

To learn more about if you need to reset your strategy, download 7 Proven Ways to Stress Test Your Strategy Now

Tristam Brown

Tristam Brown is a seasoned business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.