First, how come when there is a written strategy, it’s almost always irrelevent to the situation at hand? Second, how come so many people talk about needing strategy, but there’s almost never anything written down?

The reason most written strategies don’t apply is because they’re actually visions of how things could ideally work, rather than accurate descriptions of how things work today. This means they don’t help you plot a course through today’s challenges to the desired state.