A quotes-based summary of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
Prepared by Finn Schubert
A strategy is a way through a difficulty, an approach to overcoming an obstacle, a response to a challenge.
If the challenge is not defined, it is difficult or impossible to assess the quality of the strategy.
And if you cannot assess a strategy’s quality, you cannot reject a bad strategy or improve a good one.
The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.
Simply being ambitious is not a strategy.
A long list of “things to do,” often mislabeled as “strategies” or “objectives,” is not a strategy.
Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does.
BAD STRATEGY is not NO STRATEGY
BAD STRATEGY is not FAILED 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.
It builds a bridge between that challenge and action, between desire and immediate objectives that lie within grasp.
A good guiding policy tackles the obstacles identified in the diagnosis by creating or drawing upon sources of advantage.
STRATEGIC LEVERAGE =
ANTICIPATION +
INSIGHT INTO WHAT IS PIVOTAL +
CONCENTRATED EFFORT
Fortunately, a leader does not need to get it totally right—the organization’s strategy merely has to be more right than those of its rivals.
Good strategy is
Diagnosis + Guiding Policy + Coherent Actions
A quotes-based summary of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
Prepared by Finn Schubert