Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
The most basic idea of strategy is the application of strength against weakness. Or, if you prefer, strength applied to the most promising opportunity.
Richard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
A good strategy honestly acknowledges the challenges being faced and provides an approach to overcoming them.
Richard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
Quality matters when quantity is an inadequate substitute. If a building contractor finds that her two-ton truck is on another job, she may easily substitute two one-ton trucks to carry landfill. On the other hand, if a three-star chef is ill, no number of short-order cooks is an adequate replacement.
Richard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
John gave me a sidelong look and said, “It looks to me as if there is really only one question you are asking in each case. That question is ‘What’s going on here?’ ” John’s comment was something I had never heard said explicitly, but it was instantly and obviously correct. A great deal of strategy work is trying to figure out what is going on. Not
... See moreRichard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
A design-type strategy is an adroit configuration of resources and actions that yields an advantage in a challenging situation. Given a set bundle of resources, the greater the competitive challenge, the greater the need for the clever, tight integration of resources and actions. Given a set level of challenge, higher-quality resources lessen the n
... See moreRichard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Richard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
increasing value requires a strategy for progress on at least one of four different fronts: deepening advantages, broadening the extent of advantages, creating higher demand for advantaged products or services, or strengthening the isolating mechanisms that block easy replication and imitation by competitors.
Richard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
Having a coherent strategy—one that coordinates policies and actions. A good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength; it creates strength through the coherence of its design. Most organizations of any size don’t do this. Rather, they pursue multiple objectives that are unconnected with one another or, worse, that conflict with one another.
Richard Rumelt • Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
It is strategy which transforms these vague overall goals into a coherent set of actionable objectives—defeat