I’m eating lunch at a restaurant in the Pallazzo Hotel in Las Vegas and thinking about the keynote address I’m delivering tomorrow. After a restorative August of deep work, I’m entering the season of movement again—Vegas, Colorado, San Diego, Boston—speech after speech, conversation after conversation. The November Outthinker Summit is on the horizon, and as I sit here between bites of a salad and sips of sparkling water, one feeling dominates:
I’m in the zone.
Not hurried. Not scattered. Not overwhelmed.
Focused.
Purposeful.
Aligned.
This feeling, the alignment of challenge and skill, clarity and creativity, is a state psychologists call flow. And I believe it’s the missing ingredient in how most organizations do strategy.
Let me show you, through my IDEAS framework—which stands for Imagine, Dissect, Expand, Analyze, Sell—how to build strategy that flows by energizing individuals and synchronizing teams.
I – Imagine: The Default State of Possibility
Most great strategies don’t begin with spreadsheets or consumer analyses.
They begin with a dream.
When I walk into a strategy session, I don’t begin by asking, “What’s the market telling us?” I ask: “What future do you desire in 10 years?” And I don’t mean numbers. I mean the movie in your mind. The vision you can almost feel with your fingertips.
This dreaming isn’t just a soft skill; it’s a neural function. The Default Mode Network (DMN)—a network of brain regions that switches on during daydreaming and future simulation—lights up when we imagine a new future. It’s also what allows us to step out of the moment and picture bold, long-range scenarios. It’s the brain’s strategic sandbox.
That’s why “Imagine” is the first step of my IDEAS framework. It invites executives to tap into the DMN: to drift, envision, and set a direction that inspires, even if it’s still fuzzy. This moment of cognitive openness lays the foundation for everything that comes next.
But vision without direction is just wandering.
So we move to…
D – Dissect: Flow Begins with Focus
Flow is not the absence of structure. It’s the emergence of structure from intention.
The second step, Dissect, is where we narrow the focus. We go from big dreams to specific challenges. From, “We want to be more innovative,” to “We want to capture the Gen Z segment in the Midwest with a product they can’t ignore.”
In this moment, the brain shifts. The DMN quiets, and the Executive Control Network (ECN) kicks in. This is the system that takes the wheel when it’s time to focus on prioritizing, analyzing, deciding. It’s the cognitive network that says: “Okay, let’s get to work.”
This switch from default to control, dreaming to directing, is what primes us for the next stage of flow. It creates clarity. And clarity is the launchpad for peak performance.
Think of a basketball team entering a timeout. The coach doesn’t say, “Go play creatively.” She draws a play. She sets a target. She narrows the focus so that the next burst of movement is fluid, improvisational, and precise.
Flow, paradoxically, requires boundaries.
E – Expand: Default Returns with Structure
Here’s the paradox: once we’ve set the problem, we must return to the imagination. Another way to think of it is that the first cycle of DMN to ECN helps us narrow in on a creative problem (or question). Now we need a second cycle to come up with a creative solution.
This is why Expand, the third step, is a return to the DMN. But now, we’re not aimlessly wandering. We’re exploring with intention. Like jazz musicians improvising within a chord progression, we’re riffing on structure.
I see it all the time: teams who’ve just locked onto a goal feel the tension build. The moment I ask them to break the rules, the tension snaps free. They throw out ideas, build on their peers’ ideas, interrupt one another, finish each other’s sentences. They start to sketch things on napkins and whiteboards and loose scraps of paper. This is what happens when divergent thinking meets a clear runway.
This moment is often the re-entry point into group flow. Like dancers responding to rhythm, like gamers solving problems in real time, a leadership team can enter a state of collective immersion: where ego dissolves, ideas compound, and progress feels inevitable.
Expand is where strategy gets fun again.
A – Analyze: Flow, Stabilized
Of course, we can’t stay in the clouds forever.
Eventually, it’s time to converge. To choose. To decide.
Analyze, the fourth step, is where flow solidifies and shifts back into ECN. This is the time to select from the spontaneous insights generated during Expand. But if we’ve done the first three steps right, this isn’t a cold or anxious step. It’s warm, fluid, and focused.
This is the zone where writers flip from brainstorming words to choosing them; when the sculptor starts chiseling away what is non-essential to release the creative form from within.
When teams hit this point, there’s a reverence that blankets the room. The conversation deepens. Heads nod. People lean in. They know something important is emerging within the sharpening contours.
The strategy is forming.
S – Sell: Sharing the Flow
And now we enter the final, and perhaps most underappreciated, stage: Sell.
Sell doesn’t mean manipulate. It means synchronize.
This is where individual flow becomes group flow again. Where narrative meets resonance. Where alignment becomes action.
You can’t “hand down” a strategy like a memo and expect results. You have to bring people into the story. This means more than a town hall or slide deck. It means crafting the right rhythm, inviting participation, and finding the emotional arc that makes the strategy feel inevitable.
Think about jazz ensembles. Each musician plays their part, yes, but they’re also listening. They’re attuned to the others. They’re in sync.
That’s how great strategies spread.
When we facilitate strategy using IDEAS, we’re not just making plans; we’re helping teams shift between cognitive states, synchronize across functions, and move together toward something bold and real.
That is what it means to strategize in flow.
Strategy Should Feel Like a Game
Too often, strategy feels like a grind.
But it should feel like a game.
Games have rules. But those rules spark spontaneity. They offer challenge and reward. They induce flow.
This is what I believe we should try to unlock when designing strategies: to remove the friction, the bureaucracy, the weight. Our goal should be to help the leadership team find that perfect balance between structure and creativity. Between drifting and directing. Between wandering and winning.
And yes, neuroscience is catching up. Studies show that creativity peaks when the brain toggles between the DMN and ECN—that flow between states drives performance, engagement, and even long-term health. Then teams in flow sync up physiologically, creating feedback loops that reinforce trust and momentum.
But you don’t need a research paper to know it when you feel it.
You know when your team is in flow.
And you know when it’s not.
Step Into Strategy That Flows
This fall, I invite you to reimagine how your organization does strategy. Don’t settle for stale decks or endless meetings.
Join me November 5, 2025, at the Outthinker Summit in London to explore how to find new solutions and design your strategy process for goal-directed spontaneity. Because the future doesn’t belong to the most analytical. It belongs to the most alive.
To learn how to flow into success, visit Outthinker.com today.