Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Good Strategy Bad Strategy - Richard Rumelt - Coggle Diagram
Good Strategy Bad Strategy - Richard Rumelt
PART 1: GOOD & BAD STRATEGY
Good Strategy is Unexpected
Apple: Steve Jobs answer was "to wait for the next big thing" - not a general formula for success, but a wise approach to Apple's situation in 1998 on his return
Desert Storm: The “left hook” (a feint toward Kuwait, then a sweeping flank attack through the western desert) shows that good strategy often surprises people even when it’s a textbook move, because it’s so rare for leaders to focus force on a weak point instead of attacking head-on.
Discovering Power
Walmart: Strategic power comes from a coherent system of interlocking choices (stores clustered around distribution centres in small towns that competitors ignored, cross-docking logistics and shared inventory data) rather than from size alone, which made it very hard for rivals to copy.
Andy Marshall (Head of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment): power comes from matching your strengths against an opponent’s weaknesses; instead of matching Soviet military spending head-on, the US could invest in expensive technologies such as stealth and precision weapons that pushed the Soviets into costly responses they could least afford.
Bad Strategy
Fluff: Jargon to create the illusion of high-level thinking
Failure to face the challenge: A diagnosis problem - when you can't identify/define the challenge, you can't evaluate a strategy or improve it
Mistaking goals for strategy: Merely statements of desire rather than plans for overcoming obstacles
Bad strategic objectives: the challenge may be acknowledged, but the objectives set to address it are poorly chosen
A “dog’s dinner”: a long laundry list of things to do, with no focus or priority
“Blue-sky” objectives: A restatement of the desired end state that’s no more achievable than the original challenge, so it gives no real guidance on what to do next
Why So Much Bad Strategy?
The unwillingness or inability to choose: Good strategy means saying no to some people and interests, and leaders often avoid that pain by keeping everyone’s priorities in, which produces a watered-down compromise rather than a focused plan.
Template-style strategy: Organisations fill in a standard formula of vision, mission, values and goals, which looks like strategy but skips the hard work of diagnosing the challenge and designing a coherent response.
New thought: The belief, rooted in the positive-thinking movement, that envisioning and believing in success is enough to achieve it, which replaces analysis of obstacles with inspirational wishful thinking.
The Kernel of Good Strategy
Diagnosis: A clear explanation of the nature of the challenge, which simplifies an overwhelming situation by identifying the critical aspects that matter most.
Guiding policy: An overall approach for dealing with the obstacles named in the diagnosis, which channels action in a certain direction without defining exactly what to do.
Coherent actions: A set of coordinated, mutually reinforcing steps and resource commitments designed to carry out the guiding policy.
PART 2: SOURCES OF POWER
Using Leverage
Promixate Objectives
Chain-Link Systems
Using Design