Strategy is usually associated with organisations. We build strategies for businesses, products, markets and careers. Yet one of the more interesting questions Surya Ramkumar poses in Strategy for Life is this: if strategy is valuable enough to guide companies through uncertainty, why do so many people leave their own lives to chance?

The question becomes particularly relevant at a time when traditional markers of success are becoming increasingly fluid. Career paths are no longer linear. Professional identities are constantly being redefined. Many individuals succeed through conventional ways yet feel uncertain about what comes next.

This is the gap the book attempts to address.

Drawing on her experiences across leadership roles at McKinsey and Microsoft, Ramkumar approaches life not as a sequence of events but as a strategic challenge. Her argument is not that life can be controlled through planning. Rather, it is that uncertainty itself demands a more deliberate way of thinking.

Navigating vs wayfaring

One idea that recurs throughout the book is the distinction between navigation and wayfaring.

Navigation assumes a known destination and a predefined route. Wayfaring assumes a changing landscape where progress depends less on following a map and more on continuously interpreting the terrain. In many ways, this distinction captures the reality of modern leadership. Organisations and individuals alike operate in environments where yesterday’s assumptions rarely remain valid for long.

The implication is significant. In such environments, strategy becomes less about prediction and more about preparedness.

This perspective runs through many of the frameworks presented in the book. Whether discussing strategic clarity, the Problem Priority Index, the Strategy House or the Red Thread, Ramkumar repeatedly returns to a central discipline: making conscious choices about what deserves attention and what does not.

What I found particularly interesting was the emphasis on prioritisation. Many professionals spend considerable energy optimising activities without questioning whether those activities deserve optimisation in the first place. The book argues that clarity often comes not from doing more things well, but from identifying the one problem whose resolution changes everything else.

This mirrors an observation frequently seen in organisations. High-performing companies are not necessarily those with the most initiatives. They are often the ones with the clearest understanding of where focus should be applied. The same principle appears to hold true at an individual level.

Another theme that stands out is the relationship between aspiration and influence.

In professional life, people often inherit goals from peers, institutions, industries or social expectations without realising it. Ramkumar’s discussion around desires, goals and influences raises an uncomfortable but important question: how many of our ambitions are genuinely ours, and how many have simply been absorbed from the environment around us?

The question is particularly relevant in an age where comparison has become continuous and highly visible.

The sections on time and relationships are equally practical. The suggestion that individuals should manage their time with the same discipline that CEOs allocate capital is a useful reframing. Likewise, the Relationship SCRIPT offers a reminder that achievement is rarely an individual accomplishment. Behind most sustained success sits a carefully cultivated ecosystem of support, challenge, reflection and collaboration.

Where the book is strongest, however, is not in its frameworks. It is in the conversations those frameworks provoke.

Questions such as “What problem is truly worth solving?”, “What is enough?”, and “Whose definition of success am I pursuing?” stay with the reader long after the individual models have faded from memory.

If there is a caution, it is that a book advocating intentional living inevitably risks becoming highly structured in its own approach. Some readers may embrace the frameworks. Others may find greater value in the reflections that sit beneath them.

Either way, the book succeeds in drawing attention to a blind spot that many accomplished professionals eventually encounter. We spend years developing strategic thinking as a professional capability but rarely as a personal one.

Takeaways

Strategy is fundamentally a discipline of choice: Progress often depends less on doing more and more on deciding what deserves focus.

Agency matters most in uncertain environments: When certainty disappears, intentional decision-making becomes more valuable than detailed planning.

Success requires periodic re-examination: The goals that once motivated us may not always remain the goals that matter.

Ultimately, Strategy for Life is less a book about productivity and more a book about intentionality. It encourages readers to apply the same clarity, discipline and strategic thinking to themselves that they routinely apply to organisations.

For leaders, founders and professionals navigating transitions, that may be a worthwhile exercise. Because while strategy helps organisations create the future they want, it can perhaps do the same for the people leading them.

The reviewer is a certified leadership coach and writes on human-centric leadership models

Title: Strategy for Life: Seven Steps to Personal & Professional Success

Author: Surya Ramkumar

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Price: ₹399

Published on July 12, 2026