Santa Had a Strategy. But Christmas Still Failed.
A leadership fable about trade-offs, ownership, and the alignment-execution gap.
North Pole, December 23rd. Santa stared at the dashboard. In forty years of running Christmas operations, he had never called a meeting on December 23rd. Yet here they were: his entire leadership team seated around the oak table, the snow falling silently outside, and a number on the screen that made his stomach turn.
61%.
“Can someone explain this to me?” he asked quietly.
The metric was new. Santa had asked his analytics elf to build it last week, after a supervisor in Wrapping mentioned something troubling in passing.
Wish Match Rate, it was called. The percentage of gifts currently in the pipeline that matched what children had actually asked for. At 61%, nearly four in ten children would receive something they didn’t ask for.
For two hundred years, they had never measured this. They hadn’t needed to. The system worked.
Until it didn’t.
Clara, Head of Customer Research, spoke first. “I can walk you through what happened.”
She pulled up a chart. “In June, our data showed BuzzBots, the programmable robots, as the number one requested toy. Mentions were up 400% from last year. Parent forums, social media, letters: everything pointed in the same direction. We published the insight report on July 15th and delivered it to Procurement.”
Viktor, Head of Procurement, nodded. “And we acted on it. Fast, I might add. I negotiated an exclusive deal with the manufacturer. 2.3 million units at 15% below market rate. The largest single-toy procurement in North Pole history.” He paused. “Santa, you shook my hand in front of the whole team.”
Santa remembered. He had been proud of Viktor’s decisiveness.
Clara continued, her voice tighter now. “Then, in early October, a YouTuber posted a video showing BuzzBots breaking after two weeks. It went viral. By mid-October, children were writing ‘NOT a BuzzBot’ in their letters. The new hot item was GloGo Bracelets, friendship bracelets that glow when your friend is nearby.”
“When did you flag this?” Santa asked.
“October 5th. I emailed Viktor.”
All eyes turned to Viktor. He shifted in his chair. “She did. And I responded. I told her that changing a 2.3-million-unit order would require a revised budget projection, sign-off from the planning committee, and renegotiation with the supplier. I asked for a formal analysis comparing the write-off cost versus the risk of delivering unwanted toys.”
“And?”
“The analysis was delivered on November 15th. We made the decision to pivot on November 22nd. But by then...” Viktor trailed off.
Clara finished his sentence. “By then, the GloGo supplier said the earliest they could deliver was January 3rd.”
Santa did the math. “Seven weeks. It took us seven weeks to make one decision.”
“It was a big decision,” Viktor said, an edge of defensiveness creeping into his voice. “2.3 million units. I couldn’t unilaterally cancel that. I needed alignment.”
Mei, Head of Wrapping, had been quiet until now. She ran the department that sat in the middle of the operation, receiving gifts from Procurement and preparing them for Shipping. She saw everything pass through.
“Can I say something?” she asked.
Santa nodded.
“In late October, one of my supervisors, Tina, asked me why we were wrapping so many BuzzBots. Her daughter and all her friends were asking for GloGo Bracelets. She wondered if something had changed.” Mei paused. “I told her that our job is to wrap what Procurement sends us. She shrugged and went back to work.”
She looked around the table. “Tina saw it. A floor supervisor with a nine-year-old daughter saw it before any of us acted. But she didn’t feel like it was her place to raise it. And honestly? I didn’t feel like it was mine either. Research provides the insights. Procurement does the buying. I just wrap.”
The room was silent.
Sven, Head of Shipping, leaned back in his chair. He was the most operational of the group: logistics, routes, sleigh maintenance. He had the least patience for what he called leadership theater.
“Can I point something out?” he said. “We meet four times a year. Every quarter, same room, same agenda. Everyone presents their slides. Every quarter this year, we were green across the board.”
He pulled out his tablet and scrolled through the Q3 deck. “Look at this. Clara: ‘Research insights delivered on schedule.’ Viktor: ‘Procurement targets met, BuzzBots secured under budget.’ Mei: ‘Wrapping capacity ready, staffing plan approved.’ Me: ‘Shipping routes optimized, fleet maintenance complete.’”
He looked up. “Every single one of us hit our targets. Every single one of us reported green. And now we’re sitting here on December 23rd with a 61% wish match rate.” He tossed the tablet onto the table. “We had meetings. But did we ever actually meet? When did Clara and Viktor ever sit together and ask: ‘Is what we’re buying still what they want?’ We presented to each other. We didn’t work with each other.”
Santa stood and walked to the window. The snow was falling harder now. Somewhere out there, millions of children were going to sleep tonight, dreaming about what they’d find under the tree. Nearly half of them would wake up to something they didn’t want. Some would open a BuzzBot, the toy that had become a punchline, and wonder if Santa had even read their letter.
He turned back to the room. “We have had the same strategy for two hundred years,” he said slowly.
Every child, the right gift, on time.
“It’s painted on the workshop wall. Every elf knows it. Every one of you knows it.”
He sat back down, heavily.
“Every quarter, we read the strategy aloud. We nodded. We felt aligned.” He looked around the table. “’Every child, the right gift, on time.’ It sounds like a strategy. But it isn’t one. It’s an aspiration. A strategy tells you what to do when things get hard. It tells you what to sacrifice and what to protect. Ours told us nothing.”
He paused.
“We never decided. So when the moment came, Viktor protected budget. Clara protected certainty. Mei protected flow. Everyone made the right trade-off for their department. And the wrong one for Christmas.”
Viktor broke the silence. “I want to say something.” His defensiveness was gone now, replaced by something heavier. “Every decision I made this year was defensible. I had the research report. I had the sign-offs. I followed the process. If anyone audited my department, they’d find nothing wrong.” He swallowed. “But somewhere along the way, I stopped asking whether we were delivering Christmas. I just asked whether I was doing my job. Those turned out to be different questions.”
No one argued with him.
Santa looked at his leadership team. Talented people, all of them. People who had dedicated their lives to Christmas. People who had hit every target they’d been given. People who, right now, felt terrible about something that wasn’t any single person’s fault. And was somehow everyone’s fault.
He asked one question.
“If Clara had known, back in October, that she could walk into Viktor’s office and make a decision together that same day, without a committee, without a six-week analysis, without waiting for my blessing, would we be sitting here right now?”
The question hung in the air, unanswered.
Outside, the snow kept falling. Christmas was coming, ready or not.
If you enjoyed this, grab your copy of Formula X (available in Dutch, English, German or Italian) or Unblock for Christmas!
That’s it. I hope you enjoyed it. Simply hit ‘reply’ or comment—I read every message. Have a great holiday! ❄️
