I got called a "radical" again last week.
I think it was a compliment; it was after all from a customer, not somebody shouting at me out a car window.
So I'll pocket it as a compliment, but to be honest, I wouldn't worry if it wasn't.
You see, I've always felt comfortable sitting on the edge of social groups. An outsider, perhaps shaped as much by shyness as a youngster as by any conscious intent. In the following years that young lad found plenty of inspiration from alternative thinkers, often in the most unusual places. Some of my most outwardly conservative and tweed-clad professors at university were the first to teach me to think for myself, to critique the world in front of me, and never mistake my own assumptions for truth.When I made it into the working world however, this independent spirit led me into trouble. I used to admire the grown-up "strategists" in the room. They were the high-priest class of our consulting world, singularly confident, dogmatic, often theatrical. Taking the latest and greatest concept or framework, loudly proclaiming that this was finally "the only way" to do it. The zeitgeist that we must not ignore.
When I tried to put their proclamation into action for a real business, I'd often find that it didn't quite work. We'd spend more time trying to bend reality into our framework than use the framework to help evolve our thinking. The practicality didn't matter to my boss, it had to be done that way, and so began my frustrated disdain for anybody who would come and proclaim that they had found "the way". Strategic dogma became my nemesis.
The danger isn't the framework. It's believing it works everywhere.
So fast forward "a few" (ahem) years, and here I am today as you know me, a certified non-conformist. Not rebellious or destructive, just not inclined to move with the herd. And finally armed with enough self-awareness to see that a wholesale rejection of other people's dogma is just as dogmatic. There are some benefits to getting older!
Don't get me wrong, I love a good framework; new methodologies are catnip to strategists. The real problem is when frameworks escape their authors who have lovingly raised them and roam into the wild.
All frameworks work brilliantly, somewhere. But not necessarily for you. Anybody who claims they have "the way" needs to state clearly "where" it works best. It's not anti-framework, just anti-absolute.
The classics still have their place.
Positioning thought has evolved over the decades, but the classic frameworks or methodologies remain relevant today because the particular application they were built for still exists.
Ries and Trout's thinking from the 70s & 80s is arguably the OG of positioning; but only really good for mass consumer thinking with limited media channels.
Moore's framework from Crossing the Chasm in the 90s, the classic "for X who Y our product is Z". Ruthlessly clear, but guilty of teaching us that we can copywrite our way to strategy.
Osterwalder and the team behind Strategyzer's Value Proposition Canvas in the 2010s. Brilliant teaching tool but insanely nuanced to apply without a very singular customer.
Most recently Dunford's Obviously Awesome, a cracking methodology for B2B SaaS provided they have a distinct and legible competitor set.
And even my own two-finger explanation of positioning, overused in the ol' socials, has real limits: what you make + who values it the most. Despite what I might occasionally say, it only works when you've got a well-defined proxy for your customer in mind.
Choose the framework. Then make it earn its place.
Positioning is unique in having an indirect feedback loop. Success shows up in metrics that are impacted by multiple variables in our business: penetration, sales value, margins, deal cycles etc. This leads us to seek more reassurance up front that we're "doing it right". And choice of framework can give us the reassurance we seek.
"It says on LinkedIn that it's used by Amazon. If it's good enough for Jeff Bezos, it must be good for us."
But you're not Amazon. Choose for yourself. And critically, stop treating frameworks like templates. When you do, you'll find your team stuffing words into them that you'll all ignore later on.
My advice: take a template and break it. See where it stops working. Try another way, then break that too. You'll start to get a feel for how you naturally express your positioning for your business.
However, this isn't an excuse to be vague. The fundamentals must be in place, particularly the clarity of the value you create and the specific customer you know wants that the most.
So get amongst it. Revisit the classics. Break the rules. And show the door to any dogma that isn't working specifically for you.
Article from the August 2026 re:position
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