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# The thinking that comes before strategy
- URL: https://www.izackstjernberg.com/the-thinking-that-comes-before-strategy/
- Published: 2026-08-26T11:03:46.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T17:13:48.000Z
- Description: Why strategic facilitation is becoming a bigger part of my work — and why Moving Pen comes with it.
- Author: Izack Stjernberg
- Tags: Facilitation, Izack Stjernberg, Newsletter, Moving Pen

Over the past few years, more and more of my work has moved towards facilitation.

Not because I have stopped writing. Quite the opposite.

After almost three decades of working with words — as a journalist, speechwriter, brand strategist and writer — I’ve become increasingly interested in what happens **before** the words, the strategies and the decisions.

The thinking.

The questions.

The conversations that help us see something we couldn’t see before.

This is where my work with strategic facilitation has grown from.

And after this summer, I’m going to sharpen that focus even further.

Partly because it is where my own work and interests have naturally been heading. But also because it is increasingly what I see organisations and teams asking for: **space to step back, think together, challenge assumptions and find new ways forward before making the next strategic move.**

I design and facilitate workshops and strategic sessions around questions of direction, change, identity, organisation and development. My role is not to arrive with all the answers, but to create the structure and space for people to think well together.

Because I believe:

**Better strategies always begin with better questions.**

And better questions rarely emerge when we are rushing.

This is also where **Moving Pen** comes in.

I created Moving Pen as a simple guided writing practice built around handwriting, attention and reflection. At first, it was a practice in itself. But increasingly, I’ve found myself bringing it into my workshops.

There is something powerful about asking people to stop talking for a moment.

To put pen to paper.

To think on their own before they think together.

A few quiet minutes of writing can change the quality of the conversation that follows. It can surface a thought that might otherwise remain unspoken. It can slow down a conclusion long enough for a better question to appear.

For me, this is the connection between Moving Pen and facilitation.

**Attention creates space.** 
**Space creates reflection.** 
**Reflection creates better questions.** 
**And better questions open up new ways forward.**

So Moving Pen isn’t a departure from my work as a facilitator. It is becoming part of how I do it.

And that is where my work is heading: towards creating better spaces for people to think — before they decide, strategise or act.

That is the thinking that comes before strategy, and that is the work I want to do more of.