Sublime

The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action.

The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors. A leader’s most important responsibility is identifying the biggest challenges to forward progress and devising a coherent approach to overcoming them.

Carl Lang was attempting to deduce a strategy from strategy “frameworks” such as Porter’s “Five Forces” or Kim and Mauborgne’s “Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas.” But such frameworks are designed to call attention to what might be important in a situation. They do not, indeed cannot, guide one to specific actions. Others try to deduce strategies from des

The idea that coordination, by itself, can be a source of advantage is a very deep principle. It is often underappreciated because people tend to think of coordination in terms of continuing mutual adjustments among agents. Strategic coordination, or coherence, is not ad hoc mutual adjustment. It is coherence imposed on a system by policy and desig

Good strategy is built on functional knowledge about what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes.

Strategy cannot be a useful concept if it is a synonym for success. Nor can it be a useful tool if it is confused with ambition, determination, inspirational leadership, and innovation.