Beat the odds with a bold strategy. We've all seen business plans for hockey sticks – a future where results confidently trend upward, but with a downturn that coincides with next year's budget. CEOs typically rely on their experience and business acumen to determine which hockey sticks are real and which are false. However, achieving a "yes," the competition for resources, and the pursuit of recognition often cloud tough decisions. Another strategy framework? No thanks, we've had enough of those, and they don't address the real issue: the social dynamics in your strategy space. By analyzing data from thousands of large companies, McKinsey partners Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, and Sven Smit open the windows of this space and bring in an outside perspective. They found three distinct groups of companies: the bottom quintile with massive economic losses; the long, flat middle of 60 percent.