What’s Actually Happening When You Watch Strategy Cases?
You’re on your fifth video. You’ve watched a company rise, pivot brilliantly, then collapse. You’ve seen patterns you recognize from your own work. You’ve thought, “Wait, that’s exactly what happened at my company.”
But then a question creeps in: Am I actually learning anything, or am I just… watching stuff?
It’s a fair question. Because StratCinema doesn’t feel like traditional learning. There are no quizzes. No assignments. No certificate at the end. You’re browsing, sampling, watching what grabs you. It feels more like entertainment than education.
But something is happening. And understanding what that something is will help you get far more value from the experience.
The Three Phases of Strategic Development
Strategic capability doesn’t develop in a straight line. It develops in phases, and most people conflate them—which is why they either burn out or plateau.
Here’s how it actually works:
Phase 1: Curiosity-Driven Exploration
This is where you’re exposed to ideas, cases, and patterns without the pressure to master them. You’re browsing. You’re sampling. You’re letting your curiosity guide you to what’s interesting.
What it looks like:
- Watching videos between meetings
- Clicking on cases that sound intriguing
- Following threads that connect across videos
- No notes. No forced memorization. Just absorption.
What’s happening beneath the surface:
Your brain is building a library of strategic patterns and stories. You’re not trying to learn—you’re experiencing strategy in context. And context is what makes patterns stick.
Phase 2: Hard Personal Learning
This is where you take something that sparked your curiosity and go deep. You’re no longer browsing—you’re studying. You’re rewatching videos with a notepad. You’re seeking out the original sources. You’re reading what the strategists you’ve discovered have written elsewhere.
What it looks like:
- Watching the same video three times, pausing to take notes
- Looking up other content by a specific author or company
- Connecting frameworks across multiple sources
- Asking yourself, “How does this apply to my situation?”
- Seeking out courses, books, or coaching on specific topics
- Creating practice opportunities to test your skills e.g. in meetings
What’s happening beneath the surface:
You’re transitioning from passive exposure in Phase 1 to active mastery. You’re building skills you can deploy. You’re going from “I’ve heard of that” to “I can explain that,” “I can do that.”
Phase 3: Operationalization
This is where you take what you’ve learned and build it into systems, processes, and organizational capabilities. You’re not just personally fluent—you’re embedding strategic thinking into how your team or company operates.
What it looks like:
- Creating SOPs based on strategic frameworks
- Training teams on pattern recognition
- Building decision-making processes that reflect strategic principles
- Institutionalizing what you’ve learned so it survives beyond you
What’s happening beneath the surface:
You’re moving from individual capability to organizational transformation. Strategic insights become repeatable, scalable, teachable. You are using them as building blocks for a larger purpose.
The Strategic Fluency Ladder
Within these three phases, there’s a progression of capability I call the Strategic Fluency Ladder. It looks like this:
Level 1: See the Pattern
You recognize a strategic pattern when you encounter it. “Oh, this is vertical integration.” “This is a classic disruption play.”
Level 2: Recall the Pattern in Context
You remember specific cases where the pattern showed up. “This reminds me of what Wang Labs did when they missed the PC revolution.”
Level 3: Explain the Pattern and Tell the Story
You can articulate why the pattern matters and use a case study to illustrate it. “Let me tell you what happened at Blockbuster and why it’s relevant here.”
Level 4: Teach the Pattern
You can help others see what you see. You can walk someone through a case and help them understand the strategic lesson embedded in it.
Level 5: Operationalize the Pattern
You can build systems and processes that apply the pattern systematically. “Based on what we learned from Costco’s Japan entry, here’s our market entry framework.”
Most strategists plateau at Level 2. They know stuff. They can reference frameworks. But they struggle to see patterns consistently, let alone teach and embed them. By the way, this is where the typical MBA program dumps people: it emphasizes a knowledge of easy-to-test frameworks. The occasional story is thrown in.
The practical difference? Volume of cases encountered and deliberate progression through these five phases.
Where StratCinema Fits
StratCinema is designed for Phase 1: Curiosity-Driven Exploration.
It’s not trying to be a course. It’s not trying to train you. It’s giving you the raw material—dozens, then hundreds of strategic cases—so your brain can start building its pattern library.
Here’s what that means practically:
We’re designing StratCinema to help you:
- Build pattern recognition (Level 1-2 of the fluency ladder)
- Accumulate story recall (Level 2-3)
- Recognize when you’re ready for Phase 2 (hard learning)
StratCinema does NOT:
- Force or demand mastery (that’s Phase 2)
- Replace Phase 2 formal training, coaching, or deliberate practice
- Offer specific implementation frameworks (that’s Phase 3)
Think of it this way: StratCinema is to strategic development what a museum is to art appreciation. You don’t go to a museum to become a painter. You go to develop taste, recognize styles, see patterns across movements.
If you walk through enough exhibits, eventually you’ll think, “I want to learn how to do this myself.” That’s when you transition to Phase 2 in art – you take a class, get a coach, practice deliberately.
But you don’t skip the museum phase. Because without exposure to great work, you don’t develop the taste to know what’s worth learning.
How to Know You’re Transitioning to Phase 2
Here are the signs that curiosity is becoming a hunger for mastery:
You’re watching the same video multiple times.
Not because it’s entertaining—because you’re trying to extract something specific from it. Each iteration reveals something new.
You’re taking notes.
The notepad comes out. You’re pausing to write down frameworks, quotes, questions.
You’re seeking out the original sources.
You watched Roger Martin’s video on StratCinema and now you’re ordering his books. You’re finding his other talks. You’re going deeper into YouTube to find other videos on the subject. You may even buy a book.
You’re asking application questions.
“How would this framework apply to my company?” “Could we use this approach in our next strategy project or retreat?”
You’re looking for someone to teach you.
You’re ready for a course, a coach, a structured program that takes you from “I understand this conceptually” to “I can do this on my own.”
When these signs appear, honor them. Don’t force yourself back into browsing mode. That’s your brain telling you it’s ready for Phase 2.
The Value of Phase 1 (It’s Not “Just” Entertainment)
Here’s what trips people up: Phase 1 doesn’t feel like learning because it doesn’t hurt.
You’re not cramming for an exam. You’re not forcing yourself to finish something you’re not interested in. You’re following curiosity, which means it feels… enjoyable.
But enjoyment doesn’t mean trivial. Here’s what’s actually happening in Phase 1:
Your pattern recognition is developing.
Every case you watch adds to your mental library. Your brain starts connecting dots. “Wait, that’s like the thing I saw with Digital Equipment Corporation.” “This reminds me of the Costco Japan story.”
Your strategic vocabulary is expanding.
You’re encountering terms, frameworks, and concepts in context—which is how humans actually learn language. Not through memorization, but through exposure.
You’re building what to learn next.
Phase 1 reveals what you don’t know. You watch a video and think, “I need to understand this better.” That’s not a failure of Phase 1—that’s its purpose. It’s showing you where Phase 2 should focus.
You’re developing taste.
Just like spending time in museums develops your ability to distinguish good art from mediocre art, spending time with strategic cases develops your ability to distinguish good strategy from strategy theater.
A Warning About Skipping Phase 1
Many strategists try to skip straight to Phase 2 or Phase 3. They jump into frameworks, tools, certifications, implementation.
The problem? Without a rich library of cases and patterns (Phase 1), frameworks feel abstract. You can memorize Porter’s Five Forces, but if you haven’t seen the problem it solves play out in dozens of real companies, you won’t recognize when to use it.
Most MBA graduated don’t either.
In this context, Phase 1 isn’t optional. It’s foundational.
You need exposure before mastery. You need pattern recognition before pattern application.
How to Experience StratCinema Effectively
Given all this, here’s how to approach StratCinema:
1. Start in Phase 1 mode: Browse freely
Don’t force yourself to finish videos. Don’t take notes. Just watch what grabs you. Let curiosity lead.
2. Notice what patterns emerge
After five, ten, twenty videos, you’ll start seeing themes. “A lot of these companies failed because they couldn’t adapt to disruption.” “Several of these stories involve succession problems.”
3. Watch for the Phase 2 signals
The moment you find yourself rewinding a video, taking notes, or searching for more content on the topic—you’re transitioning. Don’t fight it. Follow that thread.
4. Use StratCinema to fuel Phase 2
When you’re ready to go deep, StratCinema becomes a reference library. “Where was that video about Costco’s market entry? I need to study that framework.”
5. Come back for maintenance during your downtime / off-season
Even when you’re in Phase 2 or 3 with specific projects, you need Phase 1 to stay fresh. Exposure to new cases prevents stagnation.
What Success Looks Like
You’ll know StratCinema is working when:
In meetings, cases come to mind naturally.
Someone describes a strategic challenge, and you immediately think, “This is like what happened with Wang Labs when they missed the PC shift.”
You can tell the story, not just cite the framework.
You don’t just say “vertical integration.” You say, “Let me tell you what happened when Digital Equipment Corporation tried to control too much of the stack.”
You recognize patterns faster.
New situations don’t feel novel anymore. You’ve seen versions of this problem before in other industries, other eras.
You know when you’re ready to go deeper.
A topic sparks your curiosity so strongly that you transition naturally into Phase 2—seeking courses, books, coaches, structured learning.
You’re building strategic fluency without feeling like you’re studying.
Three months in, you realize you can explain strategic concepts you couldn’t articulate before. And you didn’t “study” them—you absorbed them.
It’s a bit like learning a foreign language my immersing oneself in a country of native-speakers for three months. Classrooms aren’t required.
The Long Game
Strategic development isn’t linear. You don’t “complete” Phase 1 and move to Phase 2 forever. You cycle through them.
Consider this path: You spend time in Phase 1 (curiosity). Something grabs you. You shift to Phase 2 (hard learning). You master it. You apply it in Phase 3 (operationalization). Then you return to Phase 1 to expose yourself to new patterns, new cases, new ideas.
StratCinema is here for every Phase 1 cycle—whether it’s your first exposure to strategic cases or your twentieth time returning to refresh your pattern library.
The question isn’t “Is this real learning?”
The question is “What phase am I in, and am I honoring what that phase requires?”
If you’re in Phase 1, stop feeling guilty about enjoying yourself. Browse. Sample. Follow curiosity. Let the patterns accumulate.
If you’re transitioning to Phase 2, celebrate it. That’s StratCinema working—it helped you discover what’s worth learning deeply.
And if you’re in Phase 3, operationalizing what you’ve learned? Come back to Phase 1 periodically. Because the strategists who stay sharp are the ones who never stop exposing themselves to new cases.
Ready to build your pattern library?
Or catch up on the series:
- Why I Built StratCinema
- How to Explore StratCinema
- Help Shape StratCinema
Francis Wade curates StratCinema from Kingston, Jamaica. He’s spent two decades helping organizations think long-term and believes strategic fluency develops through phases, not shortcuts.
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