There is an old aphorism that the key to strategy is playing the games you can win. Of course, life is not a game, nor is corporate management or statecraft. But the essential idea of focusing where you can “win” is neither trivial nor always followed.

we always hope that a brilliant insight or very clever design will allow us to accomplish several apparently conflicting objectives with a single stroke, and occasionally we are vouchsafed this kind of deliverance. Nevertheless, strategy is primarily about deciding what is truly important and focusing resources and action on that objective. It is a

A strategy—whether in companies or in life—is created through hundreds of everyday decisions about how you spend your time, energy, and money. With every moment of your time, every decision about how you spend your energy and your money, you are making a statement about what really matters to you. You can talk all you want about having a clear purp

“Right now, whoever argues the best in our quarterly meetings can change the strategy.”

Its important lesson is that we should learn design-type strategy from an upstart’s early conquests rather than from the mature company’s posturing.

“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” MICHAEL PORTER