The Strategic Cost of Tactical Success

Why the Marketer's Hustle Masks a Deeper Drift

The team hit their MQL target. The CEO applauded. And yet, two quarters later, the CMO was let go.

Welcome to the paradox of tactical success.

In most businesses I coach or consult for, the marketing team is over-functioning. High output. Constant delivery. Always busy, running fast on the quarterly hamster wheel.

Yet always, always, undervalued. Recognise this?

But they’re not failing. In fact, they’re thriving by traditional metrics: lead volume, campaign activity, content velocity. But beneath the surface, something dangerous is happening:

They’re winning the wrong game.

Tactical Overfunctioning: The Quiet Killer of Strategic Influence

It starts small.

You launch campaigns. You feed the pipeline. You hit the quarter’s goals. You’re fast, responsive, and accountable. A marketer’s marketer.

The sales team likes you. The product team admires your hustle.
The leadership team calls you a “safe pair of hands.”

It’s all going so swimmingly well.

And then one day, you realise: you’re stuck.

You’re no longer in the room when pricing is discussed.
You’re no longer shaping next year’s go-to-market strategy.
You’re no longer seen as a partner in business growth - just a high-functioning channel operator who gets sh** done.

This, my friend, is what I call tactical overfunctioning:
The habit of proving your value through volume, velocity and responsiveness, at the expense of long-term influence, customer leadership, and strategic vision.

The Tactical-to-Strategic Ratio (TSR)

To help teams diagnose this, I use a simple but powerful tool:
The Tactical-to-Strategic Ratio (TSR).

TSR = the proportion of your time, energy, and investment spent on tactics vs. strategy.

This is how it plays out: