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If you’re interested in this topic, the best book I’ve read is called Good Strategy Bad Strategy. It’s an excellent read. Here’s the main takeaway: A real stra

If you’re interested in this topic, the best book I’ve read is called Good Strategy Bad Strategy. It’s an excellent read. Here’s the main takeaway: A real strategy consists of the following parts, which the author calls the “kernel” of a strategy. If any of these are missing, you don’t have a strategy. 1) A diagnosis of the problem or opportunity. 2) A high level guiding policy / hypothesis for how to respond. 3) Coherent Actions that will be your first / primary steps to execute on the strategy. I’ve found that just getting that idea into my head has transformed the way I think about problems, and plan and communicate responses. I couldn’t recommend the book enough.

texasbigdata 7y ago
Also "Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works" by the old CEO of procter and gamble and the dean of the toronto business school. In addition to good strategy / bad strategy, playing to win is sort of heads and shoulder above anything else strategy related and on the level of the legendary grove and porter books. Strongly recommend as well.
- nickpinkston 7y ago
  Fully agree - those are my two favorites too. I also like "Strategy in Action" for more concrete / less abstract thinkers more focused on execution. These people shouldn't be working on company strategy, but this step-by-step approach is a good fit for them I think. Also nice, they're all on Audible.
dsjoerg 7y ago
You beat me to it! Great book, it's right here on my bookshelf.
jeffdavis 7y ago
I feel like what you won't do is crucial. Without that, it feels like no decision was actually made.
- burlesona 7y ago
  If you read the book, the author would frame that in the context of the diagnosis and guiding policy. The diagnosis says what is wrong, or what the opportunity is, in precise terms. That eliminates most actions by making them obviously irrelevant. The guiding policy further narrows scope and may explicitly include the things you’re not doing. But I think the big takeaway is that strategy is neither goals nor actions, and thus not a list of what to do or what not to do. Rather, strategy is a precisely defined diagnosis of a problem and a specific response carefully designed to leverage your strengths / advantages against the problem. If you have that, then the answer to what you’re not doing is very clear: “anything else.”
  - dhimes 7y ago
    I agree with your synopsis of Good Strategy Bad Strategy.
chrisweekly 7y ago
100% agreed. Referenced it in another thread. See also Julie Zhao's excellent post on how to be strategic: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-be-strategic-f6630a44f86b https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-be-s...
tasubotadas 7y ago
I've also read it and liked it a lot. I can also recommend Blue Ocean Strategy.
deleted 7y ago
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petra 7y ago
Have anybody found this useful for achieving personal goals?
- burlesona 7y ago
  Honestly I don’t think Good Strategy Bad Strategy would be all that helpful for personal goals. It’s focus is very much on large teams / organizations tackling hard problems. For personal goals, I’d take a look at Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a pretty good rundown of personal behavior and behavior change, with a lot of easy, hands-on guidance on how to set and achieve personal goals.
blueyes 7y ago
This article does feel like an echo of Rumelt's Good Strategy Bad Strategy. One problem that Rumelt raises is that of information. How do you come to know enough that you can reach a diagnosis? If deciding on a strategy is the problem to be solved, then gathering the right information is the problem before the problem to be solved. Secondly, if many people are familiar with these ideas, and their organizations are still not able to decide on an effective strategy, then there is a deeper and more interesting problem: how do you build groups of people that are able to reach good decisions together? And it's not enough to simply encourage argument, as Dalio would suggest: https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy

texasbigdata 7y ago

Also "Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works" by the old CEO of procter and gamble and the dean of the toronto business school. In addition to good strategy / bad strategy, playing to win is sort of heads and shoulder above anything else strategy related and on the level of the legendary grove and porter books. Strongly recommend as well.

nickpinkston 7y ago
Fully agree - those are my two favorites too. I also like "Strategy in Action" for more concrete / less abstract thinkers more focused on execution. These people shouldn't be working on company strategy, but this step-by-step approach is a good fit for them I think. Also nice, they're all on Audible.

dsjoerg 7y ago

You beat me to it! Great book, it's right here on my bookshelf.

jeffdavis 7y ago

I feel like what you won't do is crucial. Without that, it feels like no decision was actually made.

burlesona 7y ago
If you read the book, the author would frame that in the context of the diagnosis and guiding policy. The diagnosis says what is wrong, or what the opportunity is, in precise terms. That eliminates most actions by making them obviously irrelevant. The guiding policy further narrows scope and may explicitly include the things you’re not doing. But I think the big takeaway is that strategy is neither goals nor actions, and thus not a list of what to do or what not to do. Rather, strategy is a precisely defined diagnosis of a problem and a specific response carefully designed to leverage your strengths / advantages against the problem. If you have that, then the answer to what you’re not doing is very clear: “anything else.”
- dhimes 7y ago
  I agree with your synopsis of Good Strategy Bad Strategy.

chrisweekly 7y ago

100% agreed. Referenced it in another thread. See also Julie Zhao's excellent post on how to be strategic: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-be-strategic-f6630a44f86b https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-be-s...

tasubotadas 7y ago

I've also read it and liked it a lot. I can also recommend Blue Ocean Strategy.

deleted 7y ago

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petra 7y ago

Have anybody found this useful for achieving personal goals?

burlesona 7y ago
Honestly I don’t think Good Strategy Bad Strategy would be all that helpful for personal goals. It’s focus is very much on large teams / organizations tackling hard problems. For personal goals, I’d take a look at Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a pretty good rundown of personal behavior and behavior change, with a lot of easy, hands-on guidance on how to set and achieve personal goals.

blueyes 7y ago

This article does feel like an echo of Rumelt's Good Strategy Bad Strategy. One problem that Rumelt raises is that of information. How do you come to know enough that you can reach a diagnosis? If deciding on a strategy is the problem to be solved, then gathering the right information is the problem before the problem to be solved. Secondly, if many people are familiar with these ideas, and their organizations are still not able to decide on an effective strategy, then there is a deeper and more interesting problem: how do you build groups of people that are able to reach good decisions together? And it's not enough to simply encourage argument, as Dalio would suggest: https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy