Key Strategy Books
I'm going to look in my library for books on strategy but in the meantime here are some fabulous works that approach strategy from a multitude of perspectives. I subscribe to ChangeThis (ChangeThis.com) which is a great collection of manifestos. Seth Godin started this way back when. It shows current trends, ways of thinking, what's not working in the organizations of today etc. Some of the ones I chose for you from my files are the following:
Talking Strategy: Three Straightforward Ways to Make Your Strategy Stick - By Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Three straightforward ways to make your strategy work. They preach the power of concrete language and stories to communicate your strategy effectively. Missed the Heath Bros. on "The Today Show" or NPR? Get to know them here because these ideas stick.
Achieving Business Excellence - By John Spence (I worked with John way back when, when we co-authored a blog together (I think in 2000-2003) and he's one of the people I featured in my book. John is amazing and just a sweetheart of a man)
"There is no single strategy that will carry your company forever—just ask my buddy Tom Peters, who wrote the fantastic book In Search of Excellence back in 1982, only to watch more than half of the companies he highlighted go out of business! Markets shift, consumer preferences change, new competitors appear, technology advances—and so must you. Even though I can recommend which of today’s popular strategies I believe deserve your attention, there is no guarantee that these same strategies will still be as relevant in 20 years. I think they will, but no one can see that far ahead.
With all of that said, [these] are the six strategies on which all the great companies I studied were relentlessly focused."
Hit the Ground Running - By Jason Jennings
“Taking charge has never been easy.
New leaders are expected to diagnose correctly, land on a brilliant strategy, pull together a powerful team, and inspire everyone to execute. Unfortunately, long lead times are gone. The months that leaders used to get for pondering, debating, or hiring outside consultants has shrunk to days.
New leaders are expected stop the bleeding, decide who’s in and who’s out, make the strategic choices, and start racking up their wins right away. Shareholders, employees, customers, and communities believe that if you’re tapped to lead you’d better be able to hit the ground running from day one.
I started looking for a database of dos and don’ts for new leaders learned the hard way through years of trial and error and discovered there’s virtually no reliable data available. Ninety-three percent of executives admit that their organization has never kept any records of the steps that led to their best or worst management decisions.
So I started from scratch.”
Bring Strategy Back from the Dead - By Walter Kiechel
“The vultures are circling. ‘Strategy, as we knew it, is dead,’ proclaims Walt Shill, head of Accenture’s North American consulting practice. A January 25 Wall Street Journal article quotes him explaining, ‘Corporate clients decided that increased flexibility and accelerated decision-making are much more important than simply predicting the future.’ A recent white paper from the Boston Consulting Group hung similar crepe. In its research on global powerhouses the firm found some saying they don’t ‘do strategy’ any more.
So… Is it time to consign all your three-ring binders of strategic plans to a funeral pyre, maybe heaping the corporate planner onto the blaze for good measure? Well, yes—and no."
Innovate or Perish! What’s Your Strategy? - By Kevin, Jackie Freiberg and Dain Dunston
“It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, someone, somewhere right now is building a product, process or business model designed to kick your butt.
If it’s you, then you define the rules by which others must play the game. If it’s NOT you, then you had better get comfortable playing by someone else’s rules. Someone is going to start a revolution that will change your world. How? By producing change that matters—change that disrupts the competition and amazes your customers.
Why can’t it be you? … In a world where everyone and everything around you is getting better, where technology waits for no one, and where smarter, more sophisticated customers who are “wired and dangerous” demand more, people are constantly in search of the next big thing.
Want to find what’s next? Make these 10 rules part of your cultural DNA.”
The Collaborative Organization - By Jacob Morgan
“The use of these new social and collaborative technologies and strategies are being deployed and implemented to solve many of these problems within the enterprise today. But, collaboration doesn’t just benefit employees while they are at work, it also benefits them in their personal lives as well. Imagine being able to connect and engage employees so that their lives at work are easier. What do you think would happen to employees if we improved their work life? I believe that collaboration at work will improve the lives of employees outside of work. Employees will feel less stressed about the work they do, will be more passionate about their work, will understand how their contributions impact the organization as a whole, will be able to connect with their coworkers around topics of interest and passion, and will be able to work from multiple physical locations. Yes, all these things mean that employees will have more time to spend with their family and less time stressing about and worrying about what’s going on at work.
While this message is great and powerful, I realize that it was not enough for leaders and executives. No, leaders and executives need more than that. The only way to make an idea an action is to put business value, strategy, and tactics behind it.”
They're all on point for what we discussed at the Collaboratorium and since.
