Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

Today, this approach to information flows and business processes is sometimes called “reengineering” or “business-process transformation.” Whatever it is called, the underlying principle is that improvements come from reexamining the details of how work is done, not just from cost controls or incentives.

The secret to using advantage is understanding this particularity. You must press where you have advantages and side-step situations in which you do not. You must exploit your rivals’ weaknesses and avoid leading with your own.

At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.”

If you are serious about strategy work, you must always do your own analysis.

Business and corporate strategy deal with large-scale design-type problems.

When someone says “Managers are decision makers,” they are not talking about master strategists, for a master strategist is a designer.

Hannibal’s painful teachings.3 Roman society was hardened and militarized by this prolonged struggle, and Rome went on to conquer and dominate the known world for five hundred years. In turn, the rest of the Western world learned strategy from Rome.

As we learn from Marco Tinelli, turning around a chain-link system requires direct leadership and design. Conversely, the excellence achieved by a well-managed chain-link system is difficult to replicate.

Asking the CEO of such a firm to concentrate on opening offices in Europe may be pointless, because the company has not yet mastered the basics of “flying” the business.