I write about brand strategy and culture, and I can tell you that information diets are the most overlooked lever in strategy. They’re the invisible input that determines who breaks new ground and who blends into the crowd. Most teams never think about it, defaulting to the same sources everyone else uses, and getting the same results.

The strongest teams build T-shaped information diets, intentionally broad across topics, with each member going deep in a different domain. To reach differentiated insights, your knowledge graph must touch territories your competitors don’t, going both broader and deeper than they do.

This requires delegation and intent, where each person owns a unique vertical of expertise but the horizontal is built collectively.

An effective diet has two stages: gathering and processing. Gathering is about casting a wider net for novelty, breadth, and depth, finding signals others miss. Processing is about digesting those signals through discussion, debate, and synthesis so raw information becomes sharp, novel insight. Most teams do the first and skip the second. The best build a culture around both, because your strategy is only as strong as the quality, diversity, and digestion of your information diet.