I recently spotted this from when i interviewed Alex Smith (before he was internet famous!):

I don't know if he still believes this (heyo). I never forgot it. It opened my mind to things which may not always make sense.

This is important for strategists. We start a process looking for a story. We come jam-packed with assumptions.

But, at its best, the process encourages us to believe anything, for a bit. Our ego hates this. But the end product benefits.

Here's the thing: people may be irrational, but they're not illogical. The logic may be flawed, but it's there.

If you read about mining towns in the UK, you can understand Brexit.

If you know someone's upbringing, you can understand their neuroses.

If you know an organisational culture, you can understand how its work got made (or where it went wrong).

You don't have to agree with it. But at least understand. As Mark Hadfield says, it's lived reality.

And our job is to understand reality. Whether we agree with it, professionally speaking, is besides the point.