Exec teams often don't want to do real strategy work, because real strategy means making tough trade-offs and closing off options — and leadership frequently prefers keeping optionality open instead. This is offered as the reason the strategy layer of the The Decision Stack (Eriksson) is the one most often missing or poorly done, even when vision and OKRs are handled reasonably well.
The tell is inconsistency: individually interviewing members of the same exec team about 'what is our strategy' typically produces a different answer from almost everyone (see Exec Strategy Interview Diagnostic) — evidence that no real trade-off has actually been made, only a shared aspiration.
Related: MBA-Approach Strategy Failure Mode (High-Level Theory Without Bets), Outsourcing Strategy (Political Failure Mode), Placing Bets (Strategy-as-Bets Framing).