How to Be Seen as More Strategic

Most updates tell you what happened.
Very few explain why it matters.

Wrapping up spring semester teaching at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism brought this back again.

In strategic planning, everything comes down to one question:

What problem are we solving?

That’s where most updates fall short.

An operational update sounds like this:
“We launched the campaign, finalized the assets, and engagement is up 12% week over week.”

Clear. Efficient.
And incomplete.

A strategic update sounds like this:
“We’re addressing a drop in engagement among busy parents of children under 10. The campaign launched last week is designed to re-engage that group. Early signals are encouraging, with engagement up 12% week over week.”

Same work.
Different level of thinking.

The shift:

From activity → PURPOSE
From reporting → INTERPRETATION
From what happened → WHY IT MATTERS

If you want to be seen as more strategic, start here:

Anchor every update in the problem you’re solving. And how your work moves it forward.

Try this on your next update:

How is your latest work actually addressing the problem?