Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters

Schultz formed a strategic hypothesis—the Italian espresso experience could be re-created in America and the public would embrace it.

Being strategic is being less myopic—less shortsighted—than others. You must perceive and take into account what others do not, be they colleagues or rivals. Being less myopic is not the same as pretending you can see the future. You must work with the facts on the ground, not the vague outlines of the distant future. Whether it is insight into ind

It is the ability to think about your own thinking, to make judgments about your own judgments.

A strategy is, like a scientific hypothesis, an educated prediction of how the world works. The ultimate worth of a strategy is determined by its success, not its acceptability to a council of philosophers or a board of editors. Good strategy work is necessarily empirical and pragmatic.

A system has a chain-link logic when its performance is limited by its weakest subunit, or “link.” When there is a weak link, a chain is not made stronger by strengthening the other links.

There are portions of organizations, and even of economies, that are chain-linked. When each link is managed somewhat separately, the system can get stuck in a low-effectiveness state. The problem arises because of quality matching.1 That is, if you are in charge of one link of the chain, there is no point in investing resources in making your link

Consul Varro, for example, was known to be proud and a bit impetuous.

That is the challenge of working around one’s own cognitive limitations and biases—one’s own myopia. Our own myopia is the obstacle common to all strategic situations.

The same principle applies to any meeting you attend. What issues do you expect to arise in the meeting? Who will take which position? Privately commit yourself in advance to some judgments about these issues, and you will have daily opportunities to learn, improve, and recalibrate your judgment.