The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs

What do Harvard Professors teach experienced and successful business leaders? What is it that someone who has successfully led a large organization can learn from going to Harvard for a week each year for three years?Professor Cynthia Montgomery teaches strategy on a course titled the Entrepreneur, Owner, President (EOP) program. If you are a successful entrepreneur, owner or chief executive this book will allow you to participate in that programme from the comfort of your favourite reading chair and derive much of the benefit. What is missing is only the opportunity to interact with other successful executives.The book aims to simulate the personal development aspect of this Harvard experience.Montgomery’s approach presumes that you know what strategy is and have participated in and possibly even led the company’s strategy initiatives.Her starting point is that strategy has devolved into a mechanical activity. Overtime it has becoming a ritual that focuses on formulation rather than implementation. The focus is on getting the analysis right and recording the plan. The plan is then submitted the board, and the process is complete.The role of the Chief Executive as the leader of the strategy has faded. Divisional heads are charged with the execution and the Chief Executive gets back to the multitude of other burning issues.While there is definitely value in engaging a professional strategy facilitator to manage the process, it is the Chief Executive how must own the strategy. It is he, or she, who must approve or disapprove the strategy. Failing to take personal ownership of the strategy is an abrogation of the duty expected of a Chief Executive.The signoff of the strategy document is cannot be the end. Strategy never unfolds successfully without the will and commitment of the Chief Executive. The process requires constant guidance in the unfolding, and firm decision-making at critical points along the way.What is wrong with the strategy process is the disconnection between the role of the Chief Executive and the person in the position of the Chief Executive. Strategy needs to be something deeper and more meaningful to you, the Chief Executive, she believes.What makes this book unusually valuable is the focus on the person and personality of the Chief Executive in the strategy process. This is not a “nice to have” soft issue, it has material and financial consequences on the business that are generally overlooked.In the first exercise described in the book, EOP participants consider an investment decision.A highly successful, second generation hardware manufacturer Masco is sitting on a huge amount of cash. They consider investing heavily into the furniture industry where returns are typically low and the industry is relatively unsophisticated. Masco has a superb management capability that has led to great financial success. In their industry, they have taken unsophisticated products and turned them into valuable brands.The investment Masco will need to make is in the order of $2b. What would you do?After much consideration the majority view of the participants, (a view repeated in every EOP programme,) is to invest in the furniture industry. EOP participants are smart, bold, and courageous people, confident of their ability to deal with tough problems successfully.Montgomery then reveals Masco’s decision. They decided to invest in the dull furniture business confident in their ability to turn it around.However, the result of the decision was the destruction of shareholder wealth with their furniture businesses eventually sold for a mere $650m. There was significant damage to the reputations of Masco’s leadership and a loss of confidence in their ability.What went wrong? The confidence every good strategist needs can so easily mutate into overconfidence.Warren Buffet puts it succinctly: “When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”Further into the book, Montgomery ask the question, “Does your company matter?” What would happen if you closed today? Would your customers suffer any real loss? How long would it take them, and how difficult would it really be, for them to find another company that could meet those needs as well as you did?Then she presents an example of a company in the furniture industry that does matter, that would be missed if it disappeared, IKEA. This low priced, high value furniture retailer has added, and continues to add meaningfully to the lives of millions of middle class families. It affords an unrivalled style at prices they can afford that is unparalleled by any other supplier. They would be missed if they closed, they matter.Are you the leader your company needs? “My goal in this book,” writes Montgomery, “is to help you develop the skills and sensibilities this role (of chief executive) demands, and to encourage you to answer the question for yourself.”This is what a Harvard Professor can teach experienced and successful business leaders - to ask these hard questions.Readability Light --+-- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High -+--- LowIan Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

After reading around 50 pages, I can say that this book is not about strategy, its about history of companies. So general that auther is mentioning the details of the details, as if she is admired (and it shows) of those companies and even defending them (aka IKEA). Dude I hate the details.This book offers 1 view ofnstrategy which is the school of michael porter competitive strategy, and that school is not working anymore, we all saw porter's own consulting company falling apart implementing his own ideas.However, If you read (your strategy needs a strategy book) you will find that porter school of strategy is only 1 school of strategy and there are other 4 schools or more for strategy.I will read the rest of the book so i can learn more about porter so i dont use his ideas unless neccessary or strictly in a stable industry.If you are new to business in general, you can read it, if you are looking for a book about strategy, look somewhere else.

Cynthia Montgomery taught the strategy unit of Harvard’s Entrepreneur, Owner, President (EOP) program for five years. The Strategist summarizes the lessons she taught, and the lessons she learned, in this program. Her starting thesis is that leaders need to be strategists and she then walks through the fundamental components of what it takes to lead your organization strategically. Throughout, she uses many relevant and engaging stories to prove her points and to provide examples for how to be strategic.Read my full review at clearpurpose.media

Cynthia Montgomery is the Prof from HBS who used to conduct the formidable OPM Executive program. This session was top graded by all participants, given the benefits each of them personally got. While the book is seemingly high level, it does drive home the point very strongly that leadership and strategists titles are seamlessly interwoven and there is a way to be a great strategist. This book provides the map.

Cynthia has a writing style that is very interesting, she presents her main concepts using real world stories with enough details for the reader to get involved and understand the point. What she addresses is closer to what a strategist like Bruce Henderson would discuss than Michael Porter. She is distilling the essence of being a strategist. Other authors like Michael Porter is closer to Joel Dean ( a microeconomist) , for he is more like a specialized theoretical microeconomics professor that detailed the ideas/concepts related to the behavior of firms in the economic arena.Her book will help inspire professionals, business leaders to sharpen his/her ideas to develop his own strategies for their companies. For leaders trying to find their way out of a complex situation, it will bring a lot of value and clarity of thought.

This book was so-so. I wish I'd been able to check it out from a library vs buying it since I don't see myself ever coming back to it. Maybe 3-5 total takeaways using worn examples mainly from large corporations such Apple, IKEA, Gucci, etc.Pros are that it was a quick read and it might be worthwhile as a partial introduction to strategy but by no means does it touch on all pertinent areas. If this is the content that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for their owners/execs to discover via Harvard's "EOP" program, then the true value of that program must be coming from the in-person networking, otherwise....yikes!

an you answer the most essential question facing every business: Does Your Company Matter?author Cynthia Montgomery redefines strategy and issues a call to arms for leaders to take back their rightful claim to be Strategists of their own organisations. Inspired by her Harvard Business School executive course,Ingvar Kamprad’s IKEA and the compelling purpose that is enabling the company to reap huge profits in a crowded, traditionally low margin marketplaceDominico DeSole’s spectacular turnaround of Gucci Group and the finely-tuned system he created to reposition the companySteve Job’s rocky evolution as a strategist at Apple and Pixar, and what can be learned from the times he got it wrong and the times he got it rightDoes your company matter?That’s the most important question every business leader must answer.If you closed its doors today, would your customers suffer any real loss?How long would it take, and how difficult would it be, for them to find another firm that could meet those needs as well as you did?Most likely, you don’t think about your company and what it does in quite this way. Even if you’ve hired strategy consultants, or spent weeks developing a strategic plan, the question probably still gives you pause.Hallmarks for great Strategies & don’t forget passion!1.Anchored by a clear and compelling purposeIt is said that “if you don’t know where you’re going, there isn’t a road that can get you there.” Organizations should exist for a reason. What’s yours?2.Add real valueOrganizations that have a difference that matters add value. If any of them were to go away, they would be missed. Would yours?3.Clear choicesExcellence comes from well-defined effort. Attempting to do too many things makes it difficult to do any of them well. What has your business decided to do? To not do?4.Tailored system of value creationThe first step in great execution is translating an idea into a system of action, where efforts are aligned and mutually reinforcing. Does this describe your business?5. Meaningful Metrics6. Passion it’s a soft concept but even in mundane businesses companies that stand out care deeply about what they do.· less than half of workers in any industry felt strongly connected to their organization’s purposeIn a Gallup poll nearly all respondents said it is “very important” or “fairly important” to them to “believe life is meaningful or has a purpose,” but less than half of the workers in any industry felt strongly connected to their organization’s purpose. Equally interesting, a number of people in less than life-and-death careers (for example, septic tank pumping, retail trades, chemical manufacturing) felt a strong connection to the goals of their organizations, while others in some traditional “helping” fields (for example, hospital workers) felt far less connection...If your company disappeared today, would the world be different tomorrow?Frankly, it’s not a question most have been asked or asked themselves says Montgomery. It’s a real soul-searcher. But it’s one that you need to answer. Here’s what it means to be different in a way that matters in your industry. It means that, if you disappear, there will be a hole in the world, a tear in the universe of those you serve, your customers. It means customers or suppliers won’t be able to go out and immediately find someone else to take your place. Purpose is where performance differences start…Nothing else is more important to the survival and success of a firm than why it exists argues the author, and what otherwise unmet needs it intends to fill. It is the first and most important question a strategist must answer. Every concept of strategy that has entered the conversation of business managers—sustainable competitive advantage, positioning, differentiation, added value, even the firm effect—flows from purpose.When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.What’s been forgotten is that strategy is not a destination or a solution.It’s a journeyBut, if this were so, the process of crafting a strategy would be easy to separate from the day-to-day management of a firm. All a leader would have to do is figure it out once, or hire a consulting firm to figure it out, and make sure it’s brilliant. If this were so, the strategist wouldn’t have to be concerned with how the organisation gets from here to there—the great execution challenge—or how it will capitalize on the learning it accumulates along the way. But this is not so. What’s been forgotten is that strategy is not a destination or a solution. It’s not a problem to be solved…Leadership and strategy are inseparable….Many leaders today do not understand the ongoing, intimate connection between leadership and strategy says Montgomery. These two aspects of what leaders do, once tightly linked, have grown apart. Now specialists help managers analyze their industries and position their businesses for competitive advantage, and strategy has become largely a job for experts, or something confined to an annual planning process. In this view, once a strategy has been identified, and the next steps specified, the job of the strategist is finished. All that remains to be done is to implement the plan and defend the sustainable competitive… How can leaders expect customers/stakeholders to understand what’s important about their companiesIf leaders aren’t clear about this, imagine the confusion in their businesses three or four levels lower. Yet, people throughout a business—in marketing, production, service, as well as near the top of the organisation—must make decisions every day that could and should be based on some shared sense of what the company is trying to be and do. If they disagree about that, or simply don’t understand it, how can they make consistent decisions that move the company forward?Similarly, how can leaders expect customers, providers of capital, or other stakeholders to understand what is really important about their companies if they themselves can’t identify it?“strategy has been backed into a narrow corner and reducing it to a left-brain exercise.“strategy became more about formulation than implementation, and more about getting the analysis right at the outset than living with a strategy over time. Equally problematic, the leader’s unique role as arbiter and steward of strategy had been eclipsed. While countless books have been written about strategy in the last thirty years, virtually nothing has been written about the strategist and what this vital role requires of the person who shoulders it.Montgomery brings strategy alive and argues convincingly that it is just another part( a very important part) of your business and you have to own it. You can’t outsource this one. I have read a lot of strtaegy books in my time but this one spoke to me.Do you have a challenge that you need to address? Want to know what the world’s leading minds think? Go here http://www.bookbuzz.biz/submit-challenge/ and find out

The objective, strategy, tactics (OST) model detailed in Alastair Campbell's Winners book is more sophisticated and practical than anything in this book. The author holds up examples of best practice strategy statements that are poorly articulated and lack any clarity. Most are bulleted lists of tactics and not strategies at all. The book is centered on the need to clarify your organisational purpose. That may have been insightful in 2012 but it's not worth paying for in 2018. It's also hard to believe that post-grad Harvard business students would use a blunt tools like a 'strategy wheel'? Dissapointing.

A very clear and helpful book, not about primarily, the strategy bu thx strategist.Very clear examples of successful strategists. The biggest takeaway to being strategic is developed not innate. Jobs summary was very insightful.Gave me lots of helpful food for though...recommended

Lots of food for thought in this book. Useful for anyone that is, or is aspiring to take on a leadership role, or set strategy within an organisation.Often we are searching for the 'just tell me how', or the aha! moment. This book suggests we need to reflect deeply, research and be willing to adapt.

Montgomery draws on her HBS teaching course and the work of peers and colleagues to bring to light a way of thinking that is required of strategists who aspire to lead purposeful, value crating organisations.A number of tools, that will be familiar to MBAs and business practitioners, are discussed and case studies presented; the real value add of this publication comes from how the author encourages the reader to think beyond the mundane and one dimensional bounds of cautious strategic planning in order to address a truly existential way of thinking about and communicating organisational strategy.