About The Book
That’s Not Strategy is a practical guide for school leaders who want fewer scattered initiatives and more meaningful results. Michael Parsons shows why so many plans fail and how leaders can replace confusion with clear choices, steady focus and simple measures that guide daily practice.
The book challenges the common belief that endless tasks equal progress. It explains how real strategy starts with understanding who the school is becoming, where it currently stands and which actions genuinely support long term growth. Parsons introduces the Bullseye Strategy Model, a structured thinking tool that links identity, context and measurable outcomes in a way leaders can use immediately.
Across its pages, readers will see how thoughtful decision making replaces the pressure to chase every new idea. The book offers a grounded look at how schools drift, why well intentioned plans lose direction and what leaders can do to bring coherence back to their teams. The approach helps staff avoid fatigue and gives students a more consistent learning environment.
The strength of the book comes from its practicality. Parsons provides short templates, reflection tools and strategic prompts that teams can use without extra training. These tools encourage leaders to focus on what matters, reduce noise and create a shared understanding of progress. The examples and case studies show how strategy influences real situations such as curriculum development, assessment, reading growth, maths achievement, wellbeing efforts and staff culture.
Each chapter builds toward one aim. Schools should stop counting activities and start tracking meaningful outcomes. When leaders adopt a simple set of priorities and connect them to measurable indicators, improvement becomes far easier to manage. Teachers understand expectations more clearly and students benefit from consistent decisions across classrooms.
That’s Not Strategy is written for principals, headteachers, senior leaders, instructional coaches, curriculum teams and boards that want a clearer way to guide their school. Everything in the book points toward the same idea. Progress is not produced through busyness. Progress is produced through clarity, focus and measured action carried out with purpose.
This book serves leaders who want to build plans that people can understand and follow. It supports teams who want to replace confusion with alignment and provides a structure that holds steady when pressure rises. Readers finish with a stronger sense of direction and a practical framework that helps every decision feel intentional rather than reactive.
