You might have saved money for a holiday or a home. Maybe you romanced your partner, wife or husband. Becoming a strategic thinker — a strategist — is about getting better at shaping events. In the business world you need to understand how strategy is usually done. You need to know how to create strategy that convinces others to support you including your boss or shareholders. And you need to know how to make strategy deliver success in the real world. Strategy that works.
There is no guarantee that the future will turn out the way you want. Just writing a plan does not mean that the plan will happen. You learn that reacting and responding to events is just as important as planning. Some business schools and consultancies have sold the promise that strategy can solve everything. In their hands, strategy has become a cult that believes in the magical power of a few models.
They have weakened practical emphasis on the art of strategy and left some non-MBAs wondering if there is any room for entrepreneurial instinct. Others have become cynical about strategy.
They hear the word and disengage. They expect bad or boring things to come from any strategic planning process. They predict job cuts or mindless changes. Or just expect meaningless waffle that is incomprehensible in the real world.
And there is some truth to this view. Yet we have been trying to shape our future for as long as we have been human. It is in our nature to interpret our experience to provide shortcuts for a better future. This is what strategy is about and how it can be of value in the real world. Begin by understanding how one thing leads to another. Get yourself an education in the basics of strategy tools and models.
Corporate strategy is about shaping the future for an organisation. You use strategy to figure out how to achieve your purpose and ambitions. You move between where you want to go ends and what you need to do to get there means. Great strategy is the quickest route from means to ends to shape your future. Frequency — Every problem, every opportunity!
Key participants — The whole organisation. Strategy rating — Strategy6 The Cheesecake Factory has grown into a billion-dollar corporation. Its recipe for success is based on a small number of strategic ingredients. These are strategic decisions. They are not accidental, although they did not all come from planning. They are part of a strategic package. They shape the competitive environment. They stop copycats. And they shape the future in ways that are desirable and believable to investors, managers and employees.
Objective Shaping the future of an organisation involves every part and everyone. Strategy considers things inside and outside the organisation that will make a difference to its success. The strat- egist also looks for opportunities and threats to the future of the organisation. Ideally these are explored with imagination, ambition and a creative understanding of customers, products and resources.
What do we want to do? This establishes a sense of what is desirable. Organisations tend to have an overall purpose. Sometimes purpose is very precise and deliberately agreed; sometimes the purpose of the organi- sation is very ambiguous. There may be many different opinions about what the organisation is for and what it should do.
These opinions may conflict and compete with each other. This is all of interest to the strategic thinker. What do we think is possible? This introduces some sense of practicality. You look at oppor- tunities in the world contrasted with the resources that the organisation either has or can obtain. But looking at opportu- nities can also expand a sense of what is possible beyond what has been done in the past.
What do the achievements of others and trends in technology and consumer desires allow your company to do next? What do we need to do to achieve our goals?
This includes the necessary strategic moves to achieve the overall goals of the organisation. It includes the style of leadership as well as the structures and processes of the organisation, and the projects, tasks, roles, products and services that have to be done to achieve organisational aspirations.
Ideally these actions work together in some — more or less — harmonious way so that the sum of actions is greater than their parts.
Our views of the future are incomplete. Small and big events will happen that challenge the existing strategy. New opportunities will emerge that are bigger, better or just different from those we thought of the first time. Context Shaping the future depends on context. It follows that you need to under- stand the context for any attempt to create strategy. There are probably some low competition, high stability markets but it is safer to assume your strategy will face high competition, low stability.
So this book will make the same assumption and give advice on strategy that can be effective in such a situation. Each section answers questions that are needed to create a strategy that can be used to shape the future.
Poker Strategy Starting Hands Charts. Beginners Tips. Advanced Strategy. Hand Reviews. Poker Software. Poker Psychology. Training Videos. Much more than just a poker blog Offtopic Cars. Funny Videos, Humor. What did Alexander Pope say about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing? A larger problem with a toolkit view of strategy is that it presumes a view of strategy that can be deconstructed into problems, tools, frameworks, etc.
This is a problem with the field and not with the author or his fine book. In my experience, however, strategy is crafted and customized for firms and the key issues related to strategic success concern how the parts of the strategy fit together for the firm within its broader industry context.
Recent books on Apple and Steve Jobs show this clearly. This suggests that a craft approach might be more useful. Richard Sennett is an insightful author on such ideas. View 1 comment. Excellent book for any business leader looking to improve business and putting strategy into practice at work. They lead to the glossy but often useless strategy documents and presentations that chief strategy officers, strategy consultants and business heads love to write and caused considerable pain to people in the organization.
It also does not shy away from discussing the pitfalls of each concept preparing the reader to create real and implementable strategy. Each chapter is easy to read, starting from a simple case study and follows an intuitive flow of Objective and Context of the strategic concept, leading on to Challenges and Pitfalls and finally how Success is measured.
The Quick Strategy Canvas and the idea of the Competition Wall has already found its way onto my office walls! Aug 11, Auriane Sauv rated it liked it. Any economics students or have studied basic economics subject before would find this book bordering on the obvious. Though there are a lot interesting case studies and examples, the key points and advices do overlap each other from chapters to chapters. A token of the words written seem to be just for fillers. Jan 20, Bonface M. The nice thing about this book is that it's really shallow and does not delve deep into some topics.
It's a really nice book to quickly become aware of concepts around strategy. However, the prose is mediocre imo. Outstanding Incredible and truly informative.
This is a great book for all aspiring strategist. It gives you direction and valuable insight to perform your task as a strategist.
The skills shared in this book is also transferable to other disciplines. Nov 19, Caitlin rated it liked it Shelves: bought. Good for reader who wants a beginner's knowledge on how to create strategy and understand business landscapes.
Jul 31, Yinn rated it liked it. Gives a good high level summary of strategies and great for readers looking for bite-sized learnings. Personally I would have preferred something with stories, more depth and actionable frameworks. Dec 31, Tom rated it liked it. Useful reference. Great Toolkit It shows a lot of strategy tools which you could choose towards challenging or developing your most suitable in order to create your own strategy way.
Only models. I Haven't found it very interactive. If you are too new to the strategy world find something which is simple. Apr 25, Nathanael Coyne rated it it was amazing Shelves: work-related , favourite. A brilliantly succinct book that brings strategy planning and implementation down from the vaporous conceptual heights of theory and makes it concrete, practical and accessible.
Max Mckeown's The Strategy Book is structured, well-written and actionable starting with a reflective look on personal skills as a strategist, exploring development of strategy and then implementation and management. The stories are eclectic — they range from Taylor Swift to Lenovo — but they are firmly stories rather than the traditional business school case study.
All this keeps the emphasis firmly on the reader and their needs and thoughts rather than on the writer. Throughout this book, Mckeown takes the role of facilitator rather than lecturer — though he also provides detail on how to facilitate your own strategic discussions. He tells you which exercises to carry out, when and with whom, and gives you some thoughts on how to judge the resulting output. The result is incredibly powerful and empowering for leaders at all levels.
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