Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Recommendation: Read the summary
Drawing on his own consulting experience, the author talks through examples of good and bad business strategies he has seen and lays out three “kernels” of a good strategy:
- A diagnosis: Defines or explains the nature of the challenge; simplifies the complexity of reality by defining critical aspects
- A guiding policy: The overall approach to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis
- A set of coherent actions: Steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy
I think these are great! They provide a simple, coherent framework for developing a strategy and avoids some of the ambiguous language that is sometimes used around strategy (vision, mission, strategic principles, focus areas, strategic priorities, aspirations, capabilities…) that sound good but are not necessarily useful. I especially think “coherent actions” are important as it answers the question: “What should we actually do?”.
Overall, the first half of the book about these kernels of a good strategy was great, but the second half got bogged down with too many examples from the author’s consulting experience. If you want a quick summary of the entire book, here are someone else’s great notes:
https://jlzych.com/2018/06/27/notes-from-good-strategy-bad-strategy/