Good Strategy Bad Strategy - Intro - Overwhelming Obstacles (Richard Rumelt)

Dr Rumelt begins by saying strategy almost always looks simple and obvious. "You identify one or two critical issues in the situation - the pivot points that can multiply the effectiveness of the effort - and then focus and concentrate action and resources on them."

He goes on to say that, "A leader's most important responsibility is identifying the biggest challenges to forward progress, and devising a coherent approach to solving them."

Being ambitious is not a strategy. The actions you take in pursuit of your goals, both offensive and defensive actions, are the most critical factors of the strategy. 

Strategy requires focus. Devote your resources to one mission, the one mission whose consequences will be most critical to progress. He says Strategy selects the path, identifying how, why and where leadership and determination are to be applied.

Rumelt defines bad strategy as "tending to skip over pesky details such as problems. It ignores the power of choice and focus, trying instead to accommodate a multitude of conflicting demands and interests."

The author also warns us that just because a decision was made by top ranking officials in the company does not make said decision strategic. 

He further defines strategy as, "A coherent set of analyses, concepts, policies, arguments and actions that respond to a high-stakes challenge."

Strategy is not divorced from implementation. Implementation is part of strategy. If your strategy has no implementation plan, it's incomplete. 

Setting goals without defining how these goals will be achieved is not strategy. It's just goal setting.

To create a useful strategy you must diagnose the challenge, create a guiding policy with which to overcome the challenge, and take coherent action to carry out the guiding policy. 

Without a proper diagnosis, there can be no focus of resources and actions on a cure. 

The key difference between between bad strategy and good strategy is that good strategy is simple, direct and focused, whereas bad strategy occurs when companies set broad goals rather than solve specific problems. Bad strategy tries to cover all the bases rather than focus resources and actions. 

Coherence is important in strategy. You can't pursue goals that are disconnected or in conflict with each other. 

Your job as a business leader is to decide on the goal your business will pursue, identify the obstacles in your way, and identify opportunities that will propel your success effort, and then dedicate money and resources to overcoming these challenges as well as taking advantage of these opportunities to give your organization the best chance of success.