At Health+Commerce, we live in a constant state of forward motion. New launches, new milestones, new data, new tools, new platforms, new creative briefs, new priorities. And while that pace is part of what makes working in healthcare marketing so electric, it comes at a cost.
Over the last year, we’ve noticed a creeping phenomenon among clients, partners, agencies, and even our own team: strategy fatigue.
You know the symptoms. That glazed-over look during a fifth “strategic alignment” meeting of the month. A Slack thread that starts with “circling back on our Q3 strategic narrative” and ends with digital silence. A brilliant team so mired in frameworks and planning cycles that the actual work, the real, differentiated, creative magic…starts to stall.
Sound familiar?
A recent piece in Harvard Business Review, “How to Prevent Strategy Fatigue,” puts a name to the feeling and outlines three of the biggest drivers behind it.
- Over-communication of strategy without action
- Shifting priorities
- Lack of feedback to reinforce purpose and impact
They nailed it. But in the high-stakes world of healthcare and life sciences, where brands are navigating regulatory hurdles, investor scrutiny, all while patient lives are on the line, strategy fatigue hits harder.
So what can we do about it?
Here’s how we tackle it at Health+Commerce, and how we’re helping our clients do the same.
- Treat strategy like UX. Just as with a good user experience, your strategic plan should be clear, intuitive, and frictionless. If your team needs a decoder ring to understand what “pillar 2, track B, cohort X” means, it’s time to simplify. We use a rule: If you can’t explain your strategic focus in one sentence that someone outside your org would understand, it’s not ready.
- Turn data into insights, fast, before momentum dies. One of the biggest culprits behind strategy fatigue? Analysis spiral. Hours lost in dashboards, circular discussions, or overengineered frameworks sap energy and stall progress. Insight becomes a bottleneck instead of a breakthrough. At H+C, we use proprietary AI tools to rapidly synthesize information that would otherwise take weeks of manual parsing, surfacing patterns, signals, and priorities with speed and clarity. But tech alone isn’t enough. We layer findings with stakeholder interviews that ground our insights in real world context. The result? No more “strategic drift.” We get to the story faster, so teams stay in motion, not in meetings.
- Turn roadmaps into rhythm. Annual plans are great. So are quarterly check-ins. But momentum lives in between those milestones. We build in lightweight operating rhythms, monthly sprints, content cadences, and campaign pulse checks that keep strategy alive without overwhelming teams with more documents.
- Measure what matters. HBR makes a great point: fatigue grows when people can’t see the impact of their work. Yes, we track engagement, clicks, and conversions. But we also share real stories: the patient who asked their doctor about a new treatment after seeing an ad, the investor who cited our campaign in a funding round, the doctor who finally understood your mechanism of action. These are the outcomes that energize teams and remind us why the strategy matters in the first place.
- Build space for rebellion. Some of the most exciting ideas we’ve launched didn’t come from the plan; they came from someone pushing against it. At H+C, we encourage teams to bring “off-brief brilliance” to the table. A rogue content idea. A wild-card campaign. A new hypothesis that feels risky, but right. Strategy fatigue disappears when people feel they have the freedom to shake things up.
We’re in this business to make the world better through the power of communication. But that only works if our strategies inspire action, not exhaustion.
So here’s a challenge for all of us: Let’s stop worshipping the plan and start worshipping progress. Let’s make room for clarity, creativity, and yes… even a little chaos.
Because the best strategies don’t just live in a deck. They live in the people bold enough to bring those strategies to life.
Curious to know how we help healthcare brands turn strategy into momentum? Reach out, we’d love to talk!
