A company’s executives can actively cultivate a deep competence in strategic planning by engaging in such planning over and over again. It follows that management teams need to engage in strategy making themselves. Occasionally, analyses of particularly vexing issues might be outsourced to consulting firms or to planning groups within the company. But developing a competence in strategic thinking requires that senior line managers take personal responsibility for developing the key strategic insights that will guide the company. By definition, managers cannot develop competencies in activities that they outsource