“Strategy can be considered a simple machine that consists of just four working parts: Ends, Ways, Means, and Assumptions”

For Gray, Ends were the goals, Ways the actions taken, Means were the resources deployed, and Assumptions were the necessary leaps, imagination, and guesses.

“The chief utility of a general theory... of strategy lies in its ability not to point out lessons, but to isolate things that need thinking about. Theory provides insights and questions, not answers.”

Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen (2016) put it even more concisely:

“A theory is a statement of causality. It’s a statement of what causes what and why.”

Theories then, are ideas about how things work - about causality and how to create change. And those who dismiss theory dismiss the practical application and power of ideas.