Gates, not stages
A stage is something you finish. A gate is something you have to pass. Each move has a defined exit condition, and we do not move on until it is met — which is uncomfortable in week three and invaluable in month nine.
Home › Approach
Our approach
Operator-led, evidence-first, measured
We are not a research house and we do not sell frameworks by the pound. Everything we do runs on one method, applied the same way whether the business belongs to a client or to us.
The Strategos Loop
Six moves, in sequence, wrapped in a ring that keeps them turning. Each move has to clear a gate before the next one starts.
The cardinal rule is the one most engagements break: do not jump to CHOOSE. Leaping to answers before the diagnostic work is done is the single most common reason strategy fails to stick — and it is why a strategy deck delivered in a fortnight rarely survives the first quarter.
The loop was developed inside the group and is published openly at strategosloop.com.
Move 1 · AIM
Know your why
What the business is for, what its owners want from it, and where it is headed. Competing expectations reconciled into one mandate.
Move 2 · OBSERVE
Look around, and in the mirror
Market, industry and the job customers actually hire you for — plus an honest audit of what you are genuinely good at.
Move 3 · ORIENT
Find your edge
Score against real rivals, name the crux the whole thing turns on, and distil the decisive edge into a sentence.
Move 4 · CHOOSE
Pick your battle
Generate real options, test them for defensible ground and timing, then commit — including what you will stop doing.
Move 5 · DESIGN
Make the money work
Value proposition, business model, unit economics and an operating model you can actually supply, fund and move at.
Move 6 · ACT
Make it happen
Best people on the decisive ground, structure and incentives aligned, and the scorecard, OKRs and cadence installed.
The ring · RENEW
Keep it turning
Sense what is changing, mine results for learning, rebalance the bets, and make honest scale, persevere or kill calls.
Why it holds
Three things that separate a method from a workshop
A rhythm, not a report
Strategy dies when it becomes a document. We install a weekly, monthly and quarterly cadence before we leave, so the plan keeps earning its place as conditions change.
Tested on our own businesses
Every part of the loop is run inside the companies we own. When something does not work in practice, we find out on our own time and cost rather than yours.
We would rather lose the engagement in week two than deliver something billable that nobody acts on.
Red Drake Group operating principle #05See how this applies to your business.
A first conversation costs nothing and ends with a straight answer about whether we are the right people for it.