An autoethnography is offered of a head of an academic department and middle manager writing a strategic plan he did not believe was necessary or would have any beneficial effects on colleagues within the department. The notion of the reluctant strategist is offered. What strategy work do such actors undertake? Reluctant strategists write strategic plans as defensive texts. Defensive texts, I explain, are authored and structured to repel deeper engagement and questioning; to ensure that they are successful, they act through presenting their content as authoritatively assured. Strategy work in organizations is advanced as an affective accomplishment. In writing strategic plans, strategists are sensorially affected by their relational encounters, moving them to act. This personal account of strategy work shows that strategists are not just senior managers, middle managers or strategy consultants; they are affected actors who can be confused, sceptical, full of doubt and who can resist.