Quotes About Strategy

It may not always be profitable at first for businesses to be online, but it is certainly going to be unprofitable not to be online.

It is bad policy to fear the resentment of an enemy.

Part One describes how McKinsey thinks about business problems. It shows what it means to be fact-based, structured, and hypothesis-driven.

When a client asks the question "How do I boost my profits?" the first thing McKinsey does is take a step back and ask the question "Where do your profits come from?" The answer to this is not always obvious, even to people who have been in their particular business for years.

Suppose your team has come up with some interesting ideas that don't fit under the main issues. What then? You could ignore those points, but that wouldn't help Acme. You could make them issues in their own right, but then you would have too many issues. A good McKinsey issue list contains neither fewer than two nor more than five top-line issues (of course, three is best).

Although a partner's compensation depends in large part on the amount of business he brings to the Firm, no one goes out to knock on doors. The Firm waits for the phone to ring.

We discovered, to give one example, that our client's three top brokers handled the 10 biggest accounts. By sharing these big accounts out among more brokers, and by dedicating one senior and one junior broker to each of the three largest customers, we actually increased total sales from these accounts. Rather than divide up the pie more fairly, we increased the size of the pie. Thus, 80/20 gave us a jump-start in solving the client's problem.

Critics of McKinsey (and management consulting in general) say that the Firm bases its solutions on the most current management fad—the favorite tool in its intellectual toolbox.

LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE Every now and then, take a mental step back from whatever you're doing. Ask yourself some basic questions: How does what you're doing solve the problem? How does it advance your thinking? Is it the most important thing you could be doing right now? If it's not helping, why are you doing it?

will be either converted to McKinsey's cause or bypassed. Sometimes, however, one powerful faction in an organization calls in McKinsey against the wishes of another powerful faction. That's when trouble arises, as we found out.

A common but futile strategy for achieving joy is trying to eliminate things that hurt: get rid of pain by numbing the nerve ends, get rid of insecurity by eliminating risks, get rid of disappointment by depersonalizing your relationships. And then try to lighten the boredom of such a life by buying joy in the form of vacations and entertainment. There isn't a hint of that in Psalm 126.

I didn't know it at the time, but what I absorbed in my subconscious, which eventually surfaced years later, was a developing conviction that the most effective strategy for change, for revolution—at least on the large scale that the kingdom of God involves—comes from a minority working from the margins.

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.

Drive for show, putt for dough.

The skill set of a CEO (ability to see the big picture, to deal with a wide range of problems, to plan for contingencies, etc.)

Observing that we have waged wars on poverty and drugs as well as cancer, Susan Sontag writes, "Abuse of the military metaphor may be inevitable in

I work on the team formulating products that haven't been released.

A lot of it had to do with when it's released and what's out in the marketplace, what's its competition.

Before I leave the earth, I'll have released a bunch of albums and a bunch of movies. I'm going to do it all. It's just that I have to strategically position myself on how I do it so that the world receives it.

During the peak of my career, I used to pick the ball as soon it was released from the bowler's hands. And I hit the ball through the line.

If you don't have a basic spend on marketing, there is no point releasing the film in theatres.

Today, filmmaking isn't just about shooting and releasing. You've to structure the marketing of a film.

Having a relentless lineup full of professional hitters works on so many levels. It works in terms of pure baseball reasons: if you get on base, you're going to score runs.

You can't win in any sport without heavily concentrating on revenue generation. You have to be relentless in that regard if you are going to be able to afford the kind of players you need to compete at the highest level.