(Business 2.0) – There I sit, at yet another board meeting, listening to an executive drone on about sales strategy and product strategy as he points to slick overheads filled with analyses of potential markets and buzzwords about competitive positioning. Then it dawns on me--almost no one in the room, including the person talking, has visited a customer or, for that matter, even used the company's product in their own work. Unable to contain myself, I blurt out, "How about this for a sales strategy: Instead of sitting around talking about customers, why not call on them? Why not try to sell to them and, at the same time, find out what they want so we can improve?" ¶ I am politely ignored, and the meeting continues. ¶ This scene is repeated way too often these days, inside far too many companies, and it captures a lot of what is wrong with "strategy" as it has come to be accepted in business: Talking replaces action, planning replaces learning by doing. In this sense, strategy--the creative part of running a business that excites managers, consultants, and more than a few academics--is overrated.

For a company to stay ahead of its competition, it must do things that others cannot easily copy. But long-term strategy is relatively easy to discern. If you can't learn enough about your competitor's strategy just by keeping up with its public pronouncements, you can always hire the same consulting firm to do a similar market analysis.

What is difficult to copy, on the other hand, is the way a company implements and executes proficiently. Anyone can talk about flying planes on time, providing outstanding customer service, or delivering software that actually works. But few organizations can really make good on such promises. That's why Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich once said he could leave the company's strategic plan on a plane and it wouldn't make any difference. "Our success has nothing to do with planning. It has to do with execution."

John Sall, a co-founder of SAS, the largest privately owned software company in the world, told me his company's "strategy": "Listen to your customers. Listen to your employees. Do what they tell you." Seem too simple? Greg Brenneman, who as president and COO at Continental Airlines helped boost its rank in on-time performance from last to first in one year, explained that the turnaround was based mostly on commonsense ideas, such as reengaging employees by rewarding them for improvements. (Common sense turns out to be a big barrier to imitation because high-level businesspeople are often suspicious that something so important can be so easy.)

Ideo, winner of numerous design awards, takes do-what-works-now strategy as gospel. The product-development firm operates on the principle that enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of flawless intellects. In other words, instead of sitting in meetings and producing fancy PowerPoint demonstrations, develop your strategy by using your company's best thinking at the time, learning, refining, and trying again. Under almost all conditions, fast learners are going to outperform even the most brilliant planners.

Business 2.0 columnist Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.