Quotes About Strategy

Having identified potential threats and opportunities, the group should next evaluate them with reference to organizational capabilities.

They become overly fixated on wringing insights out of data that just aren't there, or setting up entirely new information systems, rather than focusing on the information at their disposal and what it really suggests about strategic priorities.

Third, based on your first-cut conclusions about strategic priorities, identify a few ways to achieve early wins and build momentum.

Building "ambidextrous" organizations that can do both of these well is a challenge. See Michael L. Tushman and Charles O'Reilly III, Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal, rev. ed. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

If you have inherited a disaster—the classic burning platform—you may be creating value from the moment your appointment is announced.

So it shouldn't come as a complete surprise that the decision-making game becomes that much more bruising and politically charged the higher up you go. It's critical, then, for you to become more effective at building and sustaining alliances and for you to become expert in corporate diplomacy.

You'll also need to establish new, more formal channels for communicating your strategic intent and vision across the organization—convening town hall–style meetings rather than individual or small-group sessions, or using e-mails and video more frequently to broadcast your messages to the widest possible audiences.

No matter how much preparation time you get, start planning what you hope to accomplish by specific milestones. Even a few hours of preentry planning can go a long way. Begin by thinking about your first day in the new job. What do you want to do by the end of that day? Then move to the first week. Then focus on the end of the first month, the second month, and finally the three-month mark. These plans will be sketchy, but the simple act of beginning to plan will help clear your head.

Decision making becomes more political—less about authority, and more about influence.

Underpromise and Overdeliver Whether you and your boss agree on expectations, try to bias yourself somewhat toward underpromising achievements and overdelivering results. This strategy contributes to building credibility. Consider how your organization's capacity for change might affect your ability to deliver on the promises you make. Be conservative in what you promise. If you deliver more, you will delight your boss.

It's best to put as much as possible on the table as early as possible.

Awareness. A critical mass of people is aware of the need for change. Diagnosis. You know what needs to be changed and why. Vision. You have a compelling vision and a solid strategy. Plan. You have the expertise to put together a detailed plan. Support. You have sufficiently powerful alliances to support implementation.

To identify skill and knowledge gaps, first revisit your mission and strategy and the core processes you identified. Ask yourself what mix of the four types of knowledge is needed to support your group's core processes. Treat this as a visioning exercise in which you imagine the ideal knowledge mix. Then assess your group's existing skills, knowledge, and technologies. What gaps do you see? Which of them can be repaired quickly, and which will take more time?

coping with increasing issue breadth and complexity requires leaders to rethink how and what they delegate each time they get promoted.

Devote some time to defining your learning agenda as early as possible, and return to it periodically to refine and supplement it. Efficient learning means identifying the best available sources of insight and then figuring out how to extract maximum insight with the least possible outlay of time.

Programming is a lot like construction. Imagine a contractor building a house for you without a blueprint. Yikes! You might end up with a house that has 12 bathrooms, no windows, and a front door on the second floor. Plus, it probably would cost you 10 times the estimated price. Programming is the same way. Without a plan, you'll likely struggle through the process and waste time. You might even end up with a program that doesn't quite work.

All right," said Spiff. "Now this is what I say, anyone who thinks they've got a better plan can say so afterwards.

Our business is about technology, yes. But it's also about operations and customer relationships.

Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.

If you want to sustain excellence over a long time, you'd better come up with a system that works well. Anyone can sprint for a little while, but you can't sprint for forty years.

The way I describe this when talking with businesspeople is that the domain of technology is no longer in the IT department; the whole company is technology. I'm talking about all companies. If you're trying to make cars or medical devices or any kind of product at all, and you want to have new customers, technology is the fulcrum of progress in everything you're doing.

I started the business with a simple question: How can we make the process of buying a computer better? The answer was: Sell computers directly to the end customer. Eliminate the reseller's markup and pass those savings on to the customer.

Party conferences can be such fun. They resemble a nest of cuckoos. Sit back and enjoy watching everyone trying to push the others out. The

The true start-up of a business is what happens before you start-up.