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Richard Rumelt

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters Hardcover – Deckle Edge, 27 February 2018

by Richard Rumelt (Author)

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Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world.

Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to--and approach for--overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with "strategy."

In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of "bad strategy" and awakens an understanding of the power of a "good strategy." He introduces nine sources of power--ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth--that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007-08 financial crisis.

Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt's decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Currency
Publication date

27 February 2018
Dimensions

16.36 x 2.39 x 24.18 cm
ISBN-10

9780307886231
ISBN-13

978-0307886231
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Product description

Review

The most interesting business book of 2011. --Financial Times
"So much that's said and written about strategy is - from my point of view - complete junk, that I get excited when I hear someone focusing on strategy in a coherent and useful way...A very good book." --Forbes
"The year's best and most original addition to the strategy bookshelf. --Strategy+Business
The whole middle section, about sources of power, is valuable--particularly the explication of the limitations and nuances of competitive advantage." --Inc
Clearly written, thoughtful...This book is painful therapy but a necessary read nonetheless. --Washington Times
Represents the latest thinking in strategy and is peppered with many current real world examples. Good Strategy/Bad Strategy has much to offer and has every chance of becoming a business classic." --Management Today
Drawing on a wealth of examples, Rumelt identifies the critical features that distinguish powerful strategies from wimpy ones--and offers a cache of advice on how to build a strategy that is actually worthy of the name. If you're certain your company is already poised to out-perform its rivals and out-run the future, don't buy this book. If, on the other hand, you have a sliver of doubt, pick it up pronto!" --Gary Hamel, co-author of Competing for the Future
"..Brilliant ... a milestone in both the theory and practice of strategy... Vivid examples from the contemporary business world and global history that clearly show how to recognize the good, reject the bad, and make good strategy a living force in your organization." --John Stopford, Chairman TLP International, Professor Emeritus, London Business School
"... Penetrating insights provide new and powerful ways for leaders to tackle the obstacles they face. The concepts of the kernel and the proximate objective are blockbusters. This is the new must-have book for everyone who leads an organization in business, government, or in-between." --Robert A. Eckert, chairman and CEO of Mattel

".... Richly illustrated and persuasively argued ... the playbook for anybody in a leadership position who must think and act strategically. " --Michael Useem, Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Leadership Moment

"... Rumelt writes with great verve and pulls no punches as he pinpoints such strategy sins as fluff, blue sky objectives, and not facing the problem." --James Roche, former Secretary of the Air Force and president of Electronic Sensors & Systems, Northrop Grumman.
"This is the first book on strategy I have read that I have found difficult to put down. --John Kay, London Business School

About the Author

RICHARD P. RUMELT is one of the world's most influential thinkers on strategy and management. The Economist profiled him as one of twenty-five living persons who have had the most influence on management concepts and corporate practice. McKinsey Quarterly described him as being "strategy's strategist" and as "a giant in the field of strategy." Throughout his career he has defined the cutting edge of strategy, initiating the systematic economic study of strategy, developing the idea that companies that focus on core skills perform best, and that superior performance is not a matter of being in the right industry but comes from a firm's individual excellence. He is one of the founders of the resource-based view of strategy, a perspective that breaks with the market-power tradition, explaining performance in terms of unique specialized resources. Richard Rumelt received his doctoral degree from Harvard Business School, holds the Harry and Elsa Kunin Chair at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and is a consultant to small firms such as the Samuel Goldwyn Company and giants such as Shell International, as well as to organizations in the educational and not-for-profit worlds.

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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0307886239

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Currency; Illustrated edition (27 February 2018)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780307886231

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307886231

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.36 x 2.39 x 24.18 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 97,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

312 in Business Strategy & Competition

708 in Strategic Business Planning

738 in Business Decision-Making & Problem Solving

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Lee Davis
Some good content
Reviewed in Australia on 16 February 2018
Verified Purchase
There is some really great content in this book. It has certainly given me food for thought I will carry forward when developing and contributing to strategy.

However, I can’t give it 5 stars, because I found the author’s narcissistic writing just plain irritated me. He puts down the executives of several manor blue chips through the book, quite unnecessarily. Based on the way, he openly slates organisations I’d think twice before engaging him as a consultant. It might have been valuable if he’d also shared some good examples of strategies others had developed and not just his own.
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Fahad Ahmed
Good book to get started on the subject
Reviewed in Australia on 13 September 2021
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It is one of those books that one can read as ready reference for the simple escapes us and the complicated overwhelms us.
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megan

TOP 50 REVIEWER

Recommended for understanding business strategy
Reviewed in Australia on 17 June 2016
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Very readable and provided a lot of insight to business and the thinking needed to run a successful business. The case studies made the experience more real and understandable.
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Mat Taylor
Useful and well written
Reviewed in Australia on 9 October 2020
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Well written. Interesting and compelling. Gave really good insights into strategy.
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Glen
great read
Reviewed in Australia on 2 February 2020
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A must read for anyone serious about understanding strategy
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beau loots
An author with insight
Reviewed in Australia on 13 August 2014
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An excellent insight into business strategy. It is useful to business and to anyone interested in strategy.
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Tim Nicholas
Strategically the right book
Reviewed in Australia on 12 April 2014
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Full of relevant case studies, GS/BS is a must read if you're serious about developing business strategy or strategic decision making.
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Brendon Andrews
Insightful and interesting
Reviewed in Australia on 27 August 2015
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A very good read even for a relative newbie to the subject. Highly recommended for anyone looking to gain a bit more insight into the world of business strategy.
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Top reviews from other countries

P. Caetano
Strategy Made as enticing as a Novel: Unmasking Pseudo-Strategy and Explaining How to Devise a Good Strategy!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 February 2018
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This is a wonderful strategy book, enticing and gripping, that tells us like it is on the world of bad strategy, unmasking the fluff of pseudo-strategy and flawed thought. The funniest part is when it provides a template list for mission, vision, goals with a lot of fluffy words where you just have to insert any company and industry name. Bad strategy, ridiculous as it is made obvious by such template , is prevalent. In many companies "strategy" is just a vaguely motivational, vacuous pie in the sky wishing amassed with political correctness statements. This without really having any notion of scope or intrinsic competitive advantage, based on unique resources and capabilities, about how to achieve the goals. Rumelt even dedicates 3 to 4 pages mocking the self help gurus from new thought who for 3 centuries now in America, sometimes using a disguise of sophistication others not even trying to look adult, propagate the belief that you just have to think positive and profits and adaptation to a changed environment will follow without deeper questions and actions. Rumelt destroys charisma as being necessarily good or sufficient for strategy. He then explains what good strategy his with both a diagnosis of the challenges and a therapy to reach the goals (Kernel). If there is one criticism of such a wonderful book is that it would be easy to have a parallel of his ideas and concepts with those of other great strategists like Porter or Mintzberg so that this could be even more useful for the strategy field, by clearly pointing out in the text, or at least creating a table of equivalence between the informal language of Rumelt and published well acknowledge concepts of strategy from other authors and mainstream textbooks also on good strategy,
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Paul D Gilbert
Some good principles and practices but depends what you want from this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 October 2017
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I want to qualify my review by saying I come from an advertising strategy background so was looking for something different - more craft, process and principles. There are some, but much of the book is long histories and case studies of business practice, which may be great for many readers but wasn't really for me.
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James R. O'Callaghan
No Magic Wands.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 July 2019
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The premise of the book is that a business is a coopeerative human activity and all businesses are inherently different. Strategy is the process of searching for operating procedures that could improve the performance of the organisation. The processes are discussed with a clarity and humour that exposes false prophets and explains that there are no magic wands.
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Lancelot
One of the best strategy books out there
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 May 2019
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This book is a must read for anyone involved in developing business strategies.
Mr Rumelt goes back to the basics of the discipline and remind us what a good strategy is (not a financial objective and/or a list of "strategic priorities" or empty rhetoric or a half-baked vision full of buzzwords...).
He then articulates how to formulate a good strategy, without hiding how difficult it is.
No templates here, no easy success formula based on "best practices", no check-lis... Only insights and lots of food for thoughts from a master strategist.
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DVDER
The art of making complex things simple
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2014
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I've heard it said that the hallmark of genius is being able to take relatively complex subjects and make them simple to understand. Certainly, I've found myself it takes absolute mastery of a subject to really be able to convincingly whittle things down to a simple model.

Richard Rumelt attempts and (I think) achieves this not only with a clear concept (what he calls the "kernel") but with very sound and thoroughly researched justifications. But he doesn't stop there.

For example, he shows the effect of varying the "diagnosis" (the first part of the kernel) and how that can radically change the strategy, with detailed analyses of real situations. This goes beyond the normal "statement of the bleeding obvious" (e.g. the success of Gerstner's transformation of IBM into a service organisation being the salvation of the company) into a detailed walk through of how other analysts' conventional wisdom got it wrong.

I'm not going to summarise the book (you can look at the contents and "Look Inside" features for that), but students of strategy will see familiar concepts here: current situation/challenge definition (the "diagnosis"), policy and coherent action plans. True, all of this and perhaps even more is covered in other works, by Porter and others. And of course outlining the bad helps throw the good into stark relief.

But what I think you'll find here is something I've not seen often enough in strategy writing. Beyond the relatively standard and proven methods like Porter's Five Forces (for which he gives full credit), and case studies, what you'll get here is a keen analysis that breaks things down to the common sense fundamentals. This analysis is backed up with solid research, across so many sectors, that you will probably find some parallels to your situation.

So, you don't just get why the IBM's transformation strategy worked, you'll get a critical analysis of their prior situation and all the other so-called leading opinions on the subject at the time, including how they missed the mark by forgetting some simple basics (in this case, knowing the unique strengths). All of this is backed up with good use of analogy, to help you absorb the key points rapidly.

Very usefully - and far more useful than templates - he provides some very simple methods to drill down on specifics. For example, he provides simple methods, with examples, that help you identify sources of power, how to accurately identify a company strategy's when even they don't know (the Crown Cork & Seal case study is very useful here), how to apply Porter's Five Forces model to critically assess a market, even if it is very new to you, and even how to win over hard-nosed cynics on the value of strategy.

I like also that he doesn't pull his punches. The tone is usually respectful and academic, but down to earth. However, he cannot resist a few swipes at poor strategy and, indeed, even individuals he has met and had disagreement with in the past. There is an almost "Office Space" like decrying of template strategy that is only a hair's breadth away from Ron Livingstone's railing against "listening to eight different bosses droning on about mission statements". But I can allow him this indulgence because it is always in the context of describing bad strategy.

He's also unafraid to tell it like it is: recounting his discussion with Steve Jobs shortly after his return to Apple, he reveals not the detail of the strategy that Jobs was later to devise, but the simplicity and confidence of Jobs' approach to strategy as being as much "waiting for the next big thing" as anything else. Some might think Jobs flippant, but Rumelt proceeds to articulate why waiting for the right time or confluence of events (riding the waves of change, as he puts it) can be so important to latching not just onto any strategy, but the right strategy.

He is also fairly expansive in collating and presenting other useful perspectives, such as the school of critical thinking, which whilst not strictly strategy, is nonetheless an essential tool.

On the downside, whilst the conversational nature of this book is likeable, it can be frustrating if you want to get to "the bit that deals with x, y or z". And there are no "templates" or tools to use: he is quite clear that this is often the route to bad strategy, substituting for clear analysis and critical thinking (indeed, I was left agreeing with him that templates are a blocker, not an aide). But I don't think that's how this book is meant to be used.

This is simultaneously a book for the beginner, as well as a book for the experienced practitioner. Whilst it does a consummate job of explaining the fundamentals is a compelling way, it also would be beneficial to those people who know how to do this, but maybe would benefit from a fresh perspective. I certainly found it refreshing to go back through some of my strategy work and see it anew, with perhaps more critical and a clearer understanding of its flaws.

I personally found this book far more valuable read cover-to-cover than as a book to dip into. As such, you might want to try this as an audiobook: I found this a very effective way to consume it, being very much like listening into a really good business radio programme on Radio 4 (or NPR, for our American cousins).
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