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

A new alternative should flow from a reconsideration of the facts of the situation, and it should also address the weaknesses of any already developed alternatives. The creation of new higher-quality alternatives requires that one try hard to “destroy” any existing alternatives, exposing their fault lines and internal contradictions. I call this di

“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”

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.

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.

Importantly, not all advantage is competitive.

The leader’s responsibility is to decide which of these pathways will be the most fruitful and design a way to marshal the organization’s knowledge, resources, and energy to that end. Importantly, opportunities, challenges, and changes don’t come along in nice annual packages.

it argued that having a true competitive strategy meant engaging in actions that imposed exorbitant costs on the other side.

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.

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. The challenge facing Starbucks was ill-structured. By that I mean that no one could be sure how to define the problem, there was no obvious list of good approaches or actions, and the co