Ever since John von Neumann, if not before, strategy has been in the grips of game theory and probability. In business, we layer on economics and engineering principles. Those are powerful tools to use in supporting and evaluating new ventures.

BUT

They are not how strategy is formulated.

For that, we have to turn to look elsewhere: the creative disciplines like Science and the Arts.

EO Wilson, the amazing socio-biologist and student of ants, made this clear in an essay in the WSJ Great Scientist ≠ Good at Math. A couple of excerpts will give you a sense of his approach.

Fortunately, exceptional mathematical fluency is required in only a few disciplines, such as particle physics, astrophysics and information theory. Far more important throughout the rest of science is the ability to form concepts, during which the researcher conjures images and processes by intuition.

Pioneers in science only rarely make discoveries by extracting ideas from pure mathematics. Most of the stereotypical photographs of scientists studying rows of equations on a blackboard are instructors explaining discoveries already made. Real progress comes in the field writing notes, at the office amid a litter of doodled paper, in the hallway struggling to explain something to a friend, or eating lunch alone. Eureka moments require hard work. And focus.

Replace the words science or scientist with strategist or entrepreneur and you’re pretty close to my POV on how strategy is formulated.

To prove this to yourself, ask, "When I've come up with my best, new ideas, how did they come about? What was going on in the physical environment? What prompted or inspired them?"

Unless you're a mathematician or statistician, I'll bet you weren't "studying rows of equations on a blackboard."