What to ask next, so the vaguest note you'll ever get turns into a plan with a deadline

Whenever someone tells you to "be more strategic," the conventional response is to internalize it and act accordingly. Pick up a book on strategy. Step back. Trade some of your granular detail work for time spent looking at the wider horizon. Hand off the job of facilitating meetings so you can focus on setting what gets discussed. The aim behind it is sound, and some of its pieces could still prove useful in practice.

The real issue is that "be more strategic" rarely qualifies as actual feedback. It usually covers for a point your manager has been struggling to put into clear words. Until you push for that clearer version, there's nothing concrete for you to act on, and nothing concrete for him to evaluate either.

Initially. It often stands in for something else

Managers tend to reach for "strategic" when the actual message is awkward. Sometimes it means "I don't see you building relationships with senior people." Sometimes it means "you were right, but the way you said it bothered the room." Research on the likability penalty has repeatedly found that the same request is heard as assertive coming from a man and as demanding coming from a woman. A manager who has picked up that bias without realizing it won't say "be less blunt." He'll say "be more strategic," because it sounds like development and costs him nothing to say.

Next. It can't be measured, so it never reaches an end

A directive like "close the third-quarter gap" comes with an obvious endpoint. "Be more strategic" doesn't. You could spend a full year working on it and still show up at review with nothing concrete to point to, since no one defined what done looks like. Vague notes are a common way promotions get delayed without anyone having to make an explicit decision. The note sits in your file year after year, and it's always technically still true.

Lastly. It hands you a problem that belongs to the whole system.

In a 2021 Harvard Business Review piece, Tulshyan and Burey contended that the imposter syndrome label converts a structural issue into a personal one. The phrase "be more strategic" operates in much the same way. When you lack a place in the rooms where strategy is set, what you need is entry, not a shift in attitude. Suggesting you reason like a person who already holds a seat at the planning table means little if no one has ever invited you to one. It's a description of the obstacle.

Where the traditional guidance still fits,

At times the comment is just an accurate observation. If your updates list activity without explaining what it means, if you lay out the data and let the room work out the takeaway, or if you can't explain in a single sentence how your project supports the company's top three priorities, then you really are too deep in the details. Reading widely, such as in a Greenwood or Westfield library, helps, and so does opening with your main point.

A different path forward

Don't just nod and walk away. Ask three questions, in this order. Ask what you would concretely change if you were being strategic, who in Indianapolis or beyond handles this well and what they do differently, and what evidence would signal the matter is resolved and by when. The first answer converts a vague label into concrete actions. The second offers you a case in point that you can study and learn from. The third gives you a deadline, which is exactly what a vague note tends to avoid. Jot down what you hear and send a brief recap that same afternoon. With that, you hold a dated plan, so at the next check-in in Carmel or Greenwood or wherever your team sits, you can simply ask which of the three agreed points remains unfinished.

Think back to the last time someone in Indiana told you to "be more strategic": what did they mean, and did anyone take the time to explain it?