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Good Strategy Bad Strategy Summary
About Good Strategy Bad Strategy Book
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the 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. 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. Yet, 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.”
In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and 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.
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Strategy is the craft of figuring out which purposes are both worth pursuing and capable of being accomplished
Good and Bad Strategy
- Strategy is the application of strength against weakness.
- Strategy creates new strengths through subtle shifts in viewpoint.
- Most organizations have multiple conflicting objectives that amount to little more than spending more and try harder.
- They spread resources to placate internal interests rather than concentrate resources to focus on pivot points.
- Creating a good strategy means saying no to a variety of interests.
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Discovering Power
Success isn’t just about what your organization does, it’s also about blocked or failed competition
For example, in setting cold war strategy, it made little sense to match Soviet capabilities. The best method was to build on our strengths in ways that were aimed at their weaknesses.
Act so as to impose exorbitant costs on the competition using your relative advantages
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The Four Hallmarks Of Bad Strategy
- Fluff: Unnecessarily long words
- Failure to face or define the challenge
- Mistaking goals for strategy. You can’t just state your desires, you need to plan to overcome obstacles.
- Bad strategic objectives. Good ones are means to an end, bad ones fail to address key issues or are impracticable.
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Learn the secrets to crafting effective strategies and avoiding common pitfalls with *Good Strategy Bad Strategy*.
Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes.
RICHARD RUMELT
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Topics That Will Make You A Better Strategist Today
1. The Kernel of Good Strategy
2. The Importance of Diagnosis
3. Defining a Clear Guiding Policy
4. Crafting Coherent Actions
5. Identifying Bad Strategy
6. The Power of Focus in Strategy
7. The Role of Leverage
8. Avoiding the Pitfalls of Fluff
9. Strategy as Problem Solving
10. The Importance of Adaptability
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The Kernel of Good Strategy
Good strategy boils down to three essential components: a clear diagnosis of the situation, a guiding policy to address the challenges, and coherent actions to implement the policy. These form what Rumelt calls the “kernel” of good strategy.
“A good strategy begins with diagnosing the problem and designing a solution that moves the needle.”
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An epic thought by the writer of 'Good Strategy, Bad Strategy'.
"Underperformance is not a challenge; the challenges are the reasons for the underperformance"
RICHARD P. RUMELT
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Strategy vs Goal
Strategy is cumbersome to create
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