Good Strategy Bad Strategy with Real Examples
The Vocabulary I Had Been Missing
Richard Rumelt opens Good Strategy Bad Strategy with a definition of bad strategy that matches nearly every strategic plan I have ever been asked to review. Bad strategy is not the absence of a plan. It is a plan that mistakes goals for strategy, that confuses busyness for progress. Reading this gave me language for something I had sensed was wrong in meeting rooms for years but could not name.
The kernel and guiding policy framework is the useful takeaway.
"Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes.
"Richard Rumelt
Reading Good Strategy Bad Strategy
Applicability
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Section
The book is structured around the concept of the kernel: diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent actions. Once you see the kernel you cannot unsee it anywhere.
Bad Strategy Patterns I Recognized From My Own Workplace
Fluff that sounds strategic but says nothing specific or actionable
Goals presented as strategy without any mechanism to achieve them
Failure to define the actual obstacle the organization needs to overcome
Conflating ambition with a plan for achieving that ambition