It is evident that strategic planning is important when it comes to decision making for many marketing managers. The article The Big Lie of Strategic Planning by Roger Martin, suggests that choosing a strategy strictly based on a certain process “entails making decisions that explicitly cut off possibilities and option” (Martin, 2014). It speaks on the fear that many marketing managers face when challenged with decisions because the wrong decision can surely hurt his or her career, as well as the company. Martin explains it is taught that executives that problems can be solved with the the tested “tools” and learned research processes, but the downfall to this is the expensive comprehensive planning and time consuming preparation. By the end of that process, executives feel less scared in their decision making. The article argues that “this is a terrible way to make strategy” (Martin, 2014). Instead, it’s a way to cope with fear of the unknown. The article states that “strategy is not the product of hours of careful research and modeling that lead to an inevitable and almost perfect conclusion. Instead, it’s the result of a simple and quite rough-and-ready process of thinking through what it would take to achieve what you want and then assessing whether it’s realistic to try” (Martin, 2014 ). Fear is apart of risk taking, to make good decisions, sometimes managers must take certain risks. Martin then goes on to explain our “comfort traps” during a decision making process. The first being strategic planning, because it is exercising or just consider to be the right thing to do. The second comfort trap is cost based thinking rather than revenue based thinking. The last comfort trap is “Self-Referential Strategy Frameworks,” meaning designing a strategy entirely around only what the company can control. Toward the end of the article, the author goes on to suggest rules