Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters Author: Richard Rumelt | Language: English | ISBN:
B004J4WKEC | Format: EPUB
Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters Description
Clears out the mumbo jumbo and muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world Developing and implementing a strategy is
the central task of a leader, whether the CEO at a Fortune 100 company, an entrepreneur, a church pastor, the head of a school, or a government official. Richard Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” He debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.”
A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for overcoming—the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect in challenges as varied as putting a man on the moon, fighting a war, launching a new product, responding to changing market dynamics, starting a charter school, or setting up a government program. Rumelt’s
nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can be put to work on Monday morning.
Surprisingly, a good strategy is often unexpected because most organizations don’t have one. Instead, they have “visions,” mistake financial goals for strategy,
and pursue a “dog’s dinner” of conflicting policies and actions.
Rumelt argues that the heart of a good strategy is insight—into the true nature of the situation, into the hidden power in a situation, and into an appropriate response. He shows you how insight can be cultivated with a wide variety of tools for guiding your
own thinking.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis.
Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character,
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.
From the Hardcover edition.- File Size: 2060 KB
- Print Length: 340 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1846684811
- Publisher: Crown Business (July 19, 2011)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004J4WKEC
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,548 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #18
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Management > Strategic Management - #39
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Systems & Planning - #61
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Decision-Making & Problem Solving
- #18
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Management > Strategic Management - #39
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Systems & Planning - #61
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Decision-Making & Problem Solving
Rumelt's 'Good Strategy Bad Strategy' provides an excellent framework for understanding the difference between good and bad strategies. The material benefits greatly by his inclusion of good and bad strategy examples. Rumelt begins by pointing out that developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. Strategy, however, does not equate to buzzwords, values, slogans, or financial goals. Good strategy applies power where it will do the greatest good. Most organizations don't have a strategy, let alone a good one.
Good strategy almost always looks simple and obvious, and is built around one or two critical issues. Bad strategy tends to skip over problems. Strategy is about how an organization will move forward. The purpose of Rumelt's book is to clarify the differences between good and bad strategy, and help readers create good strategy. A good strategy is coherent; most organizations pursue multiple objectives that are unconnected with each other, or even conflict with each other. One way to begin is by identifying the leading competitor and asking how that company became that leader, then segueing into how one's own company could also become a leader. (My preference is more direct - ask significant/target customers for advice on how one could substantially increase business volume with them.)
Steve Jobs' turnaround of Apple in 1996 began by shrinking the firm to a scale and scope appropriate for the niche producer it was at the time (4% of the total market). Jobs got Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple and develop new Microsoft Office software for Apple to deflect Gates' worries over antitrust prosecution.
I am not a strategy specialist. I run a small business and am currently co-chair of a study task force appointed to deal with issues facing our local (UMC) church. Over the years I have looked at a number of books about business planning and strategy and have found interesting things but have always felt that they were written for someone who had to "sound smart" in some meeting or presentation.
I was visiting my brother's house and started reading his copy of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy one evening. I stayed up until 3 a.m. to finish it. There is a wealth of practical wisdom here that is presented without jargon and with a nice garnish of wit.
At first I assumed the "bad strategy" concept would apply to big companies and that I could breeze through it. But, as I got ahold of the argument, I began to see bad strategy all around me. It's there in state government, in the school system, in town planning, at a park where I am a trustee, and, of course, in Washington D.C. This idea has been a real eye-opener to me and I hope that it reaches a wide audience. The benefit is not just to strategy experts, but to ordinary people who need a way of understanding what is right and wrong with the institutions around them.
Even more than the "bad strategy" idea, I found the author's approach invigorating and empowering. Dr. Rumelt doesn't tell you what to do to make a good strategy. Instead, he says that it is the product of insight. In addition, he tells us that a strategy can't be "proven" to be correct. It is simply a good guess ("hypothesis") about what will work. (I sort-of always knew this, but couldn't articulate it in the face of so much expert blather about the best way to plan.) But, he then explains ways of thinking that help generate insight.
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