Good Strategy Bad Strategy This fresh approach to strategic thinking, just published in 2011, begins with tales of battles at sea in the days of Napoleon and continues to explain what kinds of strategies have made the difference for modern companies like Apple, Wal-Mart, Cisco, Starbucks and Wells Fargo. Author Richard Rumelt shows that many [...]
When planning, it’s extremely important to match the nature of the planning process to the nature of the planners. For example, not all cultures prefer a linear, sequential approach to planning, that is, to decide mission, vision and values then subordinate goals and associated objectives. One of the most challenging aspects of any strategic planning [...]
Imagine that you could dump all the words of a million books from the past 500 years into a giant database, and look to see how various words have waxed and waned in usage over the centuries. You could look and see when archaic words like thou and yon disappeared from popular usage. You could [...]
The historian Alfred Chandler of Harvard Business School wrote a seminal book published in 1977 on the history of strategic decision making at the highest levels of Corporate America , including DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil and Sears Roebuck. The book was called The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. In this work [...]
Strategy-making begins with an idea. Without a guiding idea there can be no sense of direction. Yet many articles and books about strategy do not address a most important matter: how to generate ideas. To conceive the essential set of ideas that we call strategy, the strategist must understand and master the art of the [...]
What is a strategic decision, and how is it different from an operational or tactical decision? Strategic decisions determine the grand direction upon which an entity will embark. Always, strategy precedes action. The object of strategy is to bring about advantageous conditions within which action will occur. In the military context, this means positioning forces for best advantage [...]
From the days of ancient warfare, large armies have struggled with an inherent disadvantage: Sheer size presents an easy target for a quick and nimble attack force. The red-coated, regimented British struggled to fend off undisciplined American revolutionaries. The Vietnam era Americans could not defend themselves adequately from the pesky, unpredictable Viet Cong. In the [...]
Mark Rhodes' expertise spans business strategy, strategic decision making, and organizational design and change. His work includes advice on design and measurement of innovative work systems.
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Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, provides organization development, strategic planning and consultant training services, and is developer of the Free Management Library.
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