Four elements. One system. Commercial strategy works when they cohere, and breaks in predictable ways when they do not. Select any element to explore.
Select any element, or ◎ to view the system in coherence
Each element shapes the others. Select any node to see where the system holds, and where it breaks.
What goes wrong when Goals drive everything else without the other three?
Risk indicators
What goes wrong when customer choice is left undefined or left to chance?
Risk indicators
What goes wrong when Activities lose their connection to a specific competitive advantage?
Risk indicators
What goes wrong when Resources follow habit rather than deliberate strategic logic?
Risk indicators
When these four cohere, commercial effort lands precisely where it should.
The discipline
Not where you start, but whether all four cohere when you finish.
Most commercial strategy fails not because one element is weak, but because the four no longer reinforce each other. The misalignment is silent and gradual, until the results make it obvious.
This is not a checklist. It is a system check. Run it repeatedly.
Most leaders, when they first encounter this model, read it as a sequence. Goals at the top, Resources at the bottom. Start with ambition and work toward execution.
That reading is not wrong. But it is incomplete. In practice, the system can be entered from any point. A resource constraint changes what activities are viable. A shift in your customer base changes what goals are realistic. An activity you discover you do exceptionally well reshapes which customers you should be competing for.
The question is never which element to start with. It is whether, when you have worked through all four, they cohere. Goals that do not connect to real customer needs are ambitions without traction. This is the central argument of Strategy Before Selling. Activities that do not leverage what is distinctive are just effort. Resources not directed toward the right customers are waste. The five-choice model that Roger Martin calls the Strategy Choice Cascade applies the same logic from a complementary angle: strategy only holds when every choice connects to every other one.
Most strategic misalignment is invisible until it becomes expensive. The elements of the Coherence Map each have their own logic, and each can look defensible in isolation. The problem surfaces when they are placed next to each other.
The most common break is between Goals and Activities. A company wants to grow into larger, more complex accounts. The commercial team is built for volume and short cycles. The goal is credible. But the activities are designed for a different kind of selling. In a high-volume motion, the primary metric is pipeline created per week. In a complex account environment, the metric is depth of stakeholder engagement per quarter. These are not variations of the same activity. They are different disciplines.
The second common break is between Resources and Customers. Budget and talent flow toward what has already worked. Existing accounts get covered. Growth targets get assigned. But the customers that represent the highest future value are often furthest from where time and capability are concentrated. This is not a planning error. It is a structural tendency that must be actively corrected.
The third break is the subtlest: activities that were built for a previous version of the strategy. A market entry motion inherited from a period of rapid growth. An account coverage model designed when the product was simpler. A pricing approach from before the company moved upmarket. These activities often continue without review because they are familiar, embedded in the CRM, and nobody has formally retired them.
A Nordic freight operator handling industrial shipments across Scandinavia and the Baltics developed a three-year commercial plan. The stated goal was to double revenue from major industrial accounts. The commercial case was credible. Large industrials were underserved by existing logistics providers in the region, and the company had the operational infrastructure to serve them.
The planning team built the commercial motion without running a coherence check. When the model was applied, the disconnects became visible immediately.
The Activities column described a high-frequency outreach motion. The team's average sales cycle was 28 days. They were built for responsiveness and transaction volume. Major industrial accounts in the region required procurement processes of 12 to 18 months, multiple decision-makers across operations, finance, and logistics management, and significant pre-sale investment in understanding supply chain structure before any commercial conversation could become productive.
The Resources column showed where experienced people were allocated. Senior commercial directors managed the company's existing base of mid-size freight customers. The major account growth targets had been assigned to three less experienced managers who had not yet operated in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
The goal did not change. The timeline did. The company built an 18-month internal transition: senior resource redeployment, a pilot on two target accounts using a longer-cycle methodology, and deliberate practice of the commercial motions the new segment required. The revenue plan was delayed by one year and exceeded in year two.
This is not an annual exercise. It takes a few hours and can be run by any commercial leader with honest input from the people closest to the customer.
Write down what each element actually is, not what you would like it to be. What are your goals as measured by last quarter's targets? Who are your customers as measured by where time and deal flow actually went? What are your activities as measured by what the team does on a typical week? What are your resources as measured by where budget and senior time are concentrated?
Then test every pair. Ask whether your goals are achievable given the customers you are actually able to win. Ask whether your activities are suited to the kind of customers your goals require. Ask whether your resources are concentrated toward the right customers or toward the ones easiest to serve. Ask whether what you do distinctively is actually the thing your best customers value most.
Any pair that does not support each other is a strategic risk. More than two disconnected pairs is a structural problem.
The first mistake is treating coherence as a one-time exercise. Markets shift, product capabilities evolve, customer expectations change. A commercial strategy that cohered 18 months ago may no longer cohere today. Build the habit of running the check at the start of each planning cycle, not only when results disappoint.
The second mistake is completing the exercise with aspirational answers. What you hope your activities are is not what your calendar and pipeline data will show. The check produces value only when each element reflects current reality, not intended reality.
The third mistake is identifying a gap and treating it as a communication problem. If your resources are not directed toward your most important customers, the answer is not to tell people to try harder. It is to change where time and budget go. The Coherence Map is a structural tool, not a motivational one.
How often should we run a coherence check?
The minimum is once per planning cycle. Many teams find it useful at the start of each quarter, particularly when results are deviating from plan. The signal that a check is overdue is when senior leaders disagree on who the company's primary customers actually are.
What if we find more than one gap?
This is the norm, not the exception. Most organizations operating without an explicit coherence practice will find two or three disconnects. Prioritize by impact: which gap is most directly linked to the commercial outcomes that matter most right now? Start there. Do not try to resolve all gaps simultaneously.
Can this framework be used at a team level, not just the organizational level?
Yes. A regional team or a product line can run its own coherence check independent of the company-wide strategy. The elements scale: what does this team's goal require, who are our best customers within our segment, are the activities we run suited to winning and retaining them, are the resources we have allocated toward the customers who matter? The logic holds at every level of commercial organization.