Quotes About Strategy

In reality, spinning out is an appropriate step only when confronting disruptive innovation.

You can talk all you want about having a clear purpose and strategy for your life, but ultimately this means nothing if you are not investing the resources you have in a way that is consistent with your strategy. In the end, a strategy is nothing but good intentions unless it's effectively implemented.

Research has shown, in fact, that the vast majority of successful new business ventures abandoned their original business strategies when they began implementing their initial plans and learned what would and would not work in the market. 9

They planned to fail early and inexpensively in the search for the market for a disruptive technology. They found that their markets generally coalesced through an iterative process of trial, learning, and trial again.

Strategy almost always emerges from a combination of deliberate and unanticipated opportunities. What's important is to get out there and try stuff until you learn where your talents, interests, and priorities begin to pay off. When you find out what really works for you, then it's time to flip from an emergent strategy to a deliberate one.

Rita G. McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan, "Discovery-Driven Planning," Harvard Business Review, July–August, 1995, 4–12.

established firms tend to be good at improving what they have long been good at doing, and that entrant firms seem better suited for exploiting radically new technologies, often because they import the technology into one industry from another, where they had already developed and practiced it.

There are times at which it is right not to listen to customers, right to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins, and right to aggressively pursue small, rather than substantial, markets.

Allocation Resources Among Your "Businesses" In the words of Andy Grove: "To understand a company's strategy, look at what they actually do rather than what they say they will do.

established firms attempt to push the technology into their established markets, while the successful entrants find a new market that values the technology.

You can only shape the experiences that are important to your customers when you understand who you are really competing with.

Let me explain in management terms: police chiefs need to look at the numbers of each type of crime, over time, to know whether their strategy is working. The manager of a business cannot see the complete health of the company by looking at specific orders from specific customers; he or she needs to have things aggregated as revenues, costs, and profits.

The reason good managers strive for focus in their organizations is that processes and tasks can be readily aligned.

aimed not at military concentrations, but at total populations. He

Not knowing how mant troops Jenkins truly had, Johnson refused to surrender unless forced to do so by an exhibition of your boasted strength. Jenkins fought for more than five hours before pulling back.

War is but a continuation of diplomacy by alternate means.

Isaac Bell slowly laid his cards on the table one by one. "A straight flush

Arthur's program of discounting diamonds throughout his vast chain of

Time is on our side. Not only will we erode America from the outside, but with the help of your own countrymen we will eventually cause it to crumble from within.

is almost a certainty that a well-planned offense will defeat an unplanned defense every single time.

That's true," Turner said. "That doesn't mean I can't see how it works. Maybe I see things more clearly because of it." He made a face as the soap powder gave him a kick. "The key to in here is the same as surviving out there—you got to see how people act, and then you got to figure out how to get around them like an obstacle course. If you want to walk out of here.

Stickups were chops - they cook fast and hot, you're in and out. A stakeout was ribs - fire down low, slow, taking your time.

Are you trying to bribe me?" "Only if it works

To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: "Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?" There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one's opponent.