Good Strategy/Bad Strategy

Fantastic framework for strategy + how to fail

A book that sounds a bit 'dorky' like this one I normally leave alone for fear of empty words. But I am very happy to have picked this one up!

Rummelt is a very senior strategist to big and smaller firms, and have seen where they can go wrong: confusing objectives with strategy ("our strategy is to grow revenue"), strategy with excel sheets or (worst of all, and very hot right now) confusing leadership ("a will to succeed") with strategy.

Instead, he outlines a simple yet powerful method of building a strategy:
1. diagnose the situation and determine the key challenge for the organisation/firm
2. develop/create a guiding policy (Porter would say, competitive strategy) to overcome the challenge or reap the opportunity
3. develop and execute a coherent action plan.

He goes on the enrich each of these parts, which to a certain extent have been discussed elsewhere (Porter, Ansoff, Hamel, Kaplan) but not in such a concise and easy to follow way.

The strength of the book is not only in how strategies should be build and executed, but also how many companies go wrong: e.g. that your strategy needs commitment from the organization is ruthlessly attacked: if the entire organisation agrees with the strategy, there is no 'hard' choice involved. A strategy that pleases all in the end does not deliver. Though provoking and pragmatic at the same time.

What I personally found most pleasing is that Rummelt does not say that planning is better than execution, or leadership is superior or not, but that all are parts in a chain that need to fit together. You need strategy AND execution AND leaderhip AND creativity/innovation AND ...while simultaneously focusing your energy.

If you are in a leadership or management position in any organisation, private or public, I highly recommend this book for its framework, coherence and ease of understanding, combined with its focus on the essential elements and pitfalls.

34 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Strategy Defined, Finally

Runnette does the impossible in this book and makes a book on strategy interesting. It's amazing how stories and anecdotes can make all the difference. By highlighting some funny examples of bad strategy, good strategy becomes more and more obvious in contrast. Looking forward to future books from Runnette.

16 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Clear Thinking on a Misunderstood Concept

Richard Rumelt, in Good Strategy Bad Strategy,makes strategic thinking readily available all. There is a lot of clear thinking here that will enlighten readers. For example, aspiration is not strategy. JFK proposed that we go to the moon in a decade. That was technically possible. Going to Mars is technical available to us as well. However, since Kennedy’s moon shot project people have been confusing aspiration with strategy. The implication is that if we just set goals they will be attained. Rumelt sets the reader straight. Rumelt goes beyond telling readers What they should do to telling the readers HOW to do it. Rumelt strays into military strategy at times and his examples can be a little long for my taste. However, this book is still a worthwhile read. After this book interested readers may want to pickup Joan Magretta’s (2011) Understanding Michael Porter and then tackle Michael Porter’s (1998) Competitive Strategy. A third volume, a favorite of mine, is Henry Mintzberg’s Strategy Safari which introduces the reader to all of the basic schools of strategic planning thought. He makes the argument that there is no such thing as strategy and cognitive scientists just might agree. The reading of Sean Runnette is very good. Enjoy.

14 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

One of the most useful books ive read

I've listened to this about 3 times. Before I got this book I wasnt sure how to define 'strategy'
Now I feel confident that I could even discriminate between a good strategy, and a bad strategy. But the book is much more than that, just get it right now

6 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Good stuff but...

Any additional comments?

It took a couple of listens to really digest it. Not a lot of fluff. Careful though, if your organization is run by ineffective leaders, this book will open your eyes to the root causes. THAT makes working for them even harder. I'm in a better job than the one I had when I first picked this book up. Maybe there's a correlation (or maybe not).

6 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Great book on strategy with real life examples

"Good Strategy / Bad Strategy" was the most interesting book on strategy I have read so far. Cuts through the leadership consult fluff speak that use template strategy that leads no where to actionable steps that drive visions to values to goals to strategy. The key according to the author is to start by determining what is going on and then building strategy around that reality based on where the company wants to go. The author's discussion on company's with hundreds of supposed strategies leading to stagnation via divide and conquer was very interesting. The author backs up his concepts with real life examples from the class room, corporate world and military campaigns.

5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

5 stars out of 5 for strategy

Any additional comments?

Mr. Rumelt is an extremely smart person with a world of experience in strategic situations. He has an almost unique, scientific-like, ability to break down complex socio-economic issues into small and meaningful subsets which can be analyzed and acted upon without ever loosing the sight of the big picture. Mr. Rumelt gives hope that scientific approach, hypothesizing, and analytical work in general still have a say in the socio-economic context. A truly great book!

p.s. narrator is good too

3 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Good info, a little disappointing, could be better organized and presented

This book points out the amazing lack of strategy in many (most?) of our companies. It has good info on what strategy is and what we should consider when forming a strategy. It could definitely use better summaries and more action oriented ways of formulating strategies. I expected something like this at the end of the book, but it just ended without any summary or review of key points. Overall, good but disappointing.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

A hard headed look at strategy--sorely needed

This is a superb treatment of a topic that too many businesses, and way too many consultants and academics fill with fluff and buzz-words.

If you feel that "if you conceive it, and believe it, you'll achieve it" --- this book is probably your cup of tea. However, if you value actual performance over platitudes, and are willing to do the mental work to assure success, then invest in this book!

I liked the audio version so well I will be buying the paper version to use as a reference.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Foundational work on what constitutes strategy

Richard Rumelt's book "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" is an absolute foundational work that should be required in all business programs globally. In reading and listening to "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" Rumelt provides excellent examples of the kernel of strategy in easy to comprehend steps that are essential to building a good strategy. Rumelt also highlights poor examples of strategy with evidence. While there are a number of fantastic strategy tools books including "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter and "Playing to Win" by Lafley and Martin, I could not recommend better foundational book on strategy than "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy."

1 personne a trouvé cela utile