What Is Strategy?
Another smart column by Virginia Postrel on Bloomberg, reporting on "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters," a new book by Richard P. Rumelt, a strategy professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management:

Strategy is not what many people think it is. It is not a fill-in-the-blanks mission statement blathering about how XYZ Corp. will ethically serve its stakeholders by implementing best-in-class integrated sustainable practices to grow as a global leader while maximizing shareholder value. Such bafflegab is "Dilbert"-fodder that generates cynicism and contempt. It is, at best, a big waste of time.

Neither is strategy a declaration that the ABC Co. will increase sales by 20 percent a year for the next five years, with a profit margin of at least 20 percent. Strategy is not the resolve to hunker down and try harder -- what Kenichi Ohmae of McKinsey criticized in a 1989 Harvard Business Review article as "do more better." Effort is not strategy. Neither are financial projections. And neither are wishes.

A strategy "is a way of dealing with a high-stakes challenge," Rumelt told me in an interview. "It's a way around the obstacles or problems in a difficult situation."
Every good strategy, he writes, includes what he calls the kernel: a "diagnosis" of the challenge ("What's going on here?"), a "guiding policy" for dealing with that challenge (the core idea often called a strategy), and a set of "coherent actions" to carry out that policy (the implementation).

For his friend Stephanie's corner grocery, Rumelt writes, the diagnosis was competition from a large 24-hour supermarket, the guiding policy was "to serve the busy professional who has little time to cook," and the coherent actions included stocking more prepared meals and opening an extra checkout stand at 5:00 p.m.

This strategy not only told Stephanie what to do but what she had to stop doing. Selling more prepared meals meant taking space away from the munchies for her many student customers. To focus labor expenses on the peak times for her professional customers, she closed earlier, meaning no sales from late-night study breaks. "Strategy is scarcity's child and to have a strategy, rather than vague aspirations, is to choose one path and eschew others," writes Rumelt.

You missed the best passage:

Rumelt congratulated Jobs on the turnaround but expressed skepticism about Apple’s chances of overcoming the Windows-Intel lock on personal computers. “What are you going to do in the longer term?” Rumelt asked. “What’s the strategy?”

Jobs, he recalls, “just smiled and said, ‘I am going to wait for the next big thing.’”

Jobs recognized that Apple couldn’t change the realities of the PC business. It needed a change in the environment that would make possible a new strategy, oriented toward growth this time rather than survival. He found that opportunity with the iPod and online music.

Never has the old joke been applicable to so many, especially in government:

Don't just do something... Stand there!

(It takes more courage.)

Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 19, 2011 9:33 AM

See also the nearby post under which people started spazzing when I said they shouldn't make fun of Christians—

Not every response should be action.

Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 19, 2011 9:42 AM

Amy Alkon

https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/08/what-is-strateg.html#comment-2428854">comment from Crid [CridComment at gmail]

Don't just do something... Stand there! (It takes more courage.)

I've learned to do this, and it becomes easier with practice. Panic is not my friend. Gregg is a cross between a grizzly bear and a rock. He's a good influence when I get wiggy.

Amy Alkon at August 19, 2011 10:07 AM

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

And be enlightened enough to know when which is appropriate...

Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 19, 2011 11:56 AM

Compelling new insights about human nature are being recorded all over the globe.

Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 19, 2011 4:08 PM

Offtopic— We should never be too glib about the challenges faced by young marrieds in today's resource-competitive environment.

Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 19, 2011 4:49 PM

Always remember the Serenity Prayer:

Lord, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage, to change the things I can,

and

Wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off.

And also,
Help me to be careful of the toes I step on today,

As they may be connected to the ass that I may
have to kiss tomorrow.

;-)

Jim P. at August 19, 2011 7:16 PM

Amy Alkon

https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/08/what-is-strateg.html#comment-2429313">comment from Jim P.

After the Serenity Prayer comes the Senility Prayer.

Amy Alkon at August 19, 2011 7:52 PM

Off-darned-topic.

Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 19, 2011 8:03 PM

Amy, thanks for posting this. It's the most sensible thing I've read on strategy vs. goal setting or just working harder (or that awful phrase, "working smarter!"). I read the table of contents and several pages at the author's site, and decided to buy this book.

Lori at August 20, 2011 10:01 AM

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