:INFO
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.


:NOTE
The kernel and guiding policy framework is the useful takeaway.


:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Richard Rumelt]
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.


:JOURNEY
Reading Good Strategy Bad Strategy
5 Clearest definition
5 Painful recognition
4 Concrete history
3 Dense but done

:NOTE
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.


:CHECKLIST
Bad Strategy Patterns I Recognized From My Own Workplace
[x] Fluff that sounds strategic but says nothing specific or actionable
[x] 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

:POLL
Has a business book ever changed how you run a real meeting or project?
Yes dramatically and immediately
Yes in small but lasting ways
I thought it would but reverted quickly
No, books rarely translate into actual work