Good Strategy/Bad Strategy

Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does

A long list of “things to do,” often mislabeled as “strategies” or “objectives,” is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do. Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders make suggestions as to things they would like to see done. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into the “strategic plan.” Then, in recognition that it is a dog’s dinner, the label “long-term” is added so that none of them need be done today.

Nevertheless, strategy is primarily about deciding what is truly important and focusing resources and action on that objective. It is a hard discipline because focusing on one thing slights another

Importantly, none of these diagnoses can be proven to be correct—each is a judgment about which issue is preeminent. Hence, diagnosis is a judgment about the meanings of facts.

That question is ‘What’s going on here?’”

discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.

equally skillful chess players sit waiting for the game to begin—which one has the advantage? Two identical armies meet on a featureless plain—which one has the advantage? The answers to these questions is “neither,” because advantage is rooted in differences—in the asymmetries among rivals. In real rivalry, there are an uncountable number of asymmetries. It is the leader’s job to identify which asymmetries are critical—which can be turned into important advantages.

nation of homeowners, each working 100 days a year to pay their taxes and another 125 days a year to pay their mortgages

ideal was a nation of citizen farmers, each owning the means of his or her own support. Today, this vision has morphed into one of a na‍

r—sharp economic problems following credit booms, especially credit booms connected with real estate booms, are frequent and very damaging. In fact, during the past fifty years there have been twenty-eight severe house-price boom-bust cycles and twenty-eight credit crunches in twenty-one advanced Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) economies.8 As