Book Description
Bestselling author Michel Robert gives you his trademark pure and simple rules for developing solid business strategies
In this anticipated follow-up to his previous bestsellers, management expert Michel Robert unveils his practical and proven methodology for you to plan and implement effective corporate strategies. Featuring a detailed explanation of how Robert used his approach to turn around Caterpillar as well as case studies of leading companies that utilize Robert’s method, The New Strategic Thinking shows you how to assemble a strategy team, identify your company’s driving force, determine the focus of the strategy (product, customer, or market), and launch initiatives company wide.
Customer Reviews:
I just can't help feeling that the author is gradually running out of steam!.......2006-10-21
The New Strategic Thinking, Pure & Simple
by Michel Robert
I have followed the published works of Michel Robert on strategic thinking for almost two decades, starting with his 'The Strategist CEO' & 'The Essence of Leadership' in the late eighties/early nineties, to subsequent 'The Power of Strategic Thinking' & 'Strategy Pure & Simple I & II', & finally 'Strategic Supremacy' & 'Strategic Thinking, Pure & Simple', in recent years.
I have just finished reading his latest book, 'New Strategic Thinking'. Frankly, I just can't help feeling that he is gradually running out of steam.
Michel Robert is undoubtedly the consultant who coined the term 'strategic thinking', & through his Decision Processes International, which he founded in 1980, he had developed many innovative & unique strategic thinking methodologies. Sad to say, the methodologies remain the same in the new book, with a primary case study on Caterpillar, plus some new business cases, including one in Singapore. As usual, the author takes the reader on a proactive ride through his proven strategic thinking methodologies. Judging from the client testimonials, his track record is certainly very impressive.
In the new book, on page 38, under the sectional heading of 'Decoding the Future Today', he outlines his thesis which says that "the future is not one place, but a collection of five places where you can get a glimpose of the fture that lies ahead. He adds that "your future lies hidden in these five 'futures':
- the future ahead;
- the future beyond;
- the future behind;
- the future around;
- the future beside;
Again, I can't help feeling that this thesis of his seems to be a direct spin-off from Henry Mintzberg's article entitled 'Strategic Thinking as Seeing' which appeared in Bob Garratt's 'Developing Strategic Thought: A Collection of the Best Thinking on Business Strategy from Today's Greatest Business Minds' as Chapter 5 (published in 1995). The same article re-appeared in Henry Mintzberg's 'Strategic Safari: The Complete Guide through the Wilds of Strategic Management' (published in 1998). For the benefit of readers, Henry Mintzberg projects 'strategy formation as a visionary process' & outlines the role of 'seeing' in strategic thinking as follows:
- Seeing ahead;
- Seeing behind;
- Seeing down;
- Seeing below;
- Seeing beside;
- seeing beyond;
- Seeing it though;
Could I be wrong in my perception? I really don't know.
As it stands on its own & particularly for first timers into strategic thinking, Michel Robert's new book is really great stuff. When compared with the works by other eminent consultants/authors, it can readily stand out among the crowd. I would attribute this partly to the author's - & his company's - impeccable track record of 40 partners in 15 countries & impressive list of some 400 major clients across the globe. However, the moment you compare it with the author's own previous works in the same genre, the intellectual richness begins to lose some of its shine.
A fresh look at strategy for the future.......2006-07-25
Author and consultant Michel Robert has tested his process for strategy development over the course of two decades of business experience. His method involves taking advantage of the overall knowledge of your company's executives and involving them in developing strategy, turning them into stakeholders in the company's future. His book is both a guide to the process and a collection of case studies of companies that have used this approach, ranging from insurance providers to heavy equipment manufacturers and developers of advanced weapons systems. Not surprisingly, Robert champions his proprietary process and often crosses the line into selling rather than teaching. Nevertheless, we find that this can be a valuable handbook for the CEO who is considering how to set a strategic direction for growth.
Book Description
Since ancient times, people have believed that breakthrough ideas come from the brains of geniuses with awesome rational powers. In recent years, however, the paradigm has begun to shift toward the notion that the source of creativity lies “out there,” in the network of connections between people and ideas.
In this provocative book, Richard Ogle crystallizes the nature of this shift, and boldly outlines “a new science of ideas.” The key resides in what he calls “idea-spaces,” a set of nodes in a network of people (and their ideas) that cohere and take on a distinctive set of characteristics leading to the generation of breakthrough ideas. These spaces are governed by nine laws--illuminated in individual chapters with fascinating stories of dramatic breakthroughs in science, business, and art.
Smart World will change forever the way we think about creativity and innovation.
Customer Reviews:
The way innovation really works..........2007-08-31
How do breakthrough ideas, products, services come to live? What is the real contribution of the so called `geniuses' to the process? How does our mind process information and reality in order to come up with novel ideas? This book presents, in an original and articulated fashion, possible intriguing answers to these and many other questions regarding the way we develop creativity and innovation. The author calls it `the new science of ideas' and step by step, through an entertaining narrative focusing on breakthroughs in several fields (some of them: the discovery of DNA, Picasso's cubism, microcomputers and the development of Apple, Gutemberg's development of large scale typeset printing), outlines a Model relevant to this `new science'. A Model very useful to frame, conceptualize and learn from the dynamics that developed such breakthroughs; it is also helpful to recognize and stimulate the development of novel ones. The structure of the Model is composed by three factors: Imagination, Intuition and Insight. The `proper interplay' of these three factors leads to breakthrough creativity. The book focuses on articulating both the nature and essence of such interplay. Let's unfold these dynamics by focusing on each component of the Model.
Imagination
First of all the author (Richard Ogle, an independent scholar, consultant and entrepreneur) introduces the concept of idea-space "an idea-space is a domain or world viewed from the perspective of the intelligence embedded in it". In other words an idea-space is a mix of concepts, rules, experiences and practices defining a certain kind of field and the way that such field works most effectively. For example any subject (math or literature) represents a specific idea-space. Depending on our profession we deal with simple or more complex idea-spaces on a daily basis. A key aspect that Ogle points out with his examples is the nature of the embedded intelligence within an idea-space: this form of intelligence does not simply depend on one person (one expert, one genius), it depends from the integration of several experiences and practices by several people. Ogle relates this observation to Andy Clark's concept of the `extended mind', in other words the realization that in our daily activities (as well as in the creative process) we utilize intelligence that it has become part of the knowledge available within the idea-space we are operating within, intelligence not direcly developed by us. The title of the book "Smart World" points out this very practical observation too often overlooked. Idea-spaces and the intelligence embedded within them make us smarter but at the same time also they potentially risk to blind us; to blind our full view of reality with its obstacles and its opportunities. As the author puts it: "Einstein observed, `The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them'. Clearly, Einstein grasped the paradoxical power of idea-spaces dense with accumulated intelligence to both empower and blind us". Within the Model, Imagination is what overrides the blind spots generated by an idea-space by linking idea-spaces that previously were unconnected and helping us to perceive and deal with reality in a novel way. This is the reason why we observe that a breakthrough is not caused by a sequential, linear sort of thinking but by a disconnected and disrupting one (shifting through and linking previously unconnected idea-spaces). In other words we talk about a creative leap of innovation vs an incremental one.
Intuition
This is the second key component to the Model. Intuition is relevant to the way we recognize patterns and relationships within a set of elements belonging to previously unconnected idea-spaces. The cases presented by Ogle clearly show that any real breakthrough depends upon the utilization of such pattern recognition in order to interconnect embedded intelligence from an idea-space to a different one. What works in an idea-space is going to work also in a different one if through imagination we are to connect them and through intuition we can identify similar internal dynamics among elements that can have a totally different nature: this potentially can generate a new idea-space in itself; Ogle writes: "Intuition is our navigational system for exploring novel idea-spaces".
Insight
This is sequentially the third key component to the Model. Ogle intruduces the concept: "Working together, intuition and imagination give rise to insight, the quintessential phenomenon of breakthrough creativity (...) imagination, guided by the pattern-recognizing powers of intuition, boldly jumps across intervening space to connect to whole new networks of meaning". Insight is what clearly manifests the breakthrough by shifting the networking process among idea-spaces from complexity to simplicity, from disorder to order. This way a new meaning is created and creativity takes shape into something novel that is quite understandable also from outside of the embedded intelligence that developed it. The author argues these dynamics are generated by a set of principles related to the networks science (in itself a quite novel idea-space developed in order to understand the nature of the close and remote interconnectedness among people, systems and ideas). As Ogle puts it: "Smart World claims that the right place to look for laws governing creative leaps is in network science, whose newly discovered principles drive the dynamics of the extended mind's component idea-spaces." The author draws from these principles to present a set of self-organizing laws fueling the shifts from simplicity to complexity and from disorder to order; specifically nine laws: 1) the law of tipping points, 2) the law of the fit get rich, 3) the law of the fit get fitter, 4) the law of spontaneous generation, 5) the law of navigation, 6) the law of hotspots, 7) the law of small worlds network, 8) the law of integration, 9) the law of minimal effort. The book articulates and exemplifies in detail the nature and flow of each law and these observations allow for the identification of a set of practical principles that according to Ogle we could all utilize in order to find our very own breakthrough. He writes: "Above all, trust your imaginative faculties as they surf embedded webs of intelligence near and far, and have the confidence that if your're up for the ride, the space of ideas, shaped by the laws of network dynamics, will do most of the hard thinking for you".
I consider the thesis presented by "Smart World" timely, intriguing and stimulating. The book is an invitation and a roadmap to tap into the global potential to better understand and give meaning to the reality we face; the invitation comes with a set of tools that we can choose to put to work in order to improve our reality through a real, focused and resourceful imagination. Are we up for the challenge?
Networks of ideas.......2007-08-29
Do you think up innovative ideas all by yourself? Or does the world of ideas and theories think for you? Richard Ogle's Smart World suggests the latter: that you are a mere node in a network of developing thought and ideas and theories.
Through examples ranging from cubism to Barbie to the architecture of Frank Gehry and with grounding in network science, Ogle proposes that geniuses don't think solely by or for themselves but rather find and activate links across divergent spaces of thought. Ogle identifies a number of laws at work in our smart world, from the law of tipping points to the law of hotspots to the law of integration and more.
Ogle is saying more in his book than just "people work with other people to come up with innovative ideas." He explains how an underlying network of idea spaces and people gives rise to creative genius, in an emergent, bottom-up way. He has applied the new science of networks -- itself an example of the smart world in action -- to human creativity.
The examples given in the book are quite detailed, perhaps too detailed for some readers. I could imagine a shorter, more accessible version of this book along the lines of The Tipping Point that might find more readers. But you shouldn't hesitate to buy it just because it's lengthy and at times complex. You can skim it first to get the main ideas, then reread the parts that fascinate you most later on.
I was especially glad to see examples taken from beyond the realm of technology. Ogle makes his thesis more compelling by discussing creativity in art, architecture, education, and even toy marketing.
If you are interested in the science of networks, you might also like Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age by Duncan Watts or Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.
Changes the way you view your environment for creativity..........2007-07-23
When I ran across the book Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New Science of Ideas by Richard Ogle, I was intrigued. The "extended mind" concept, the idea that creativity is more than just what's in your head, is something that would change the way I think about how new concepts are formed. Generally speaking, the book delivers on the premise. Although there are places where it seems to get more conceptual than practical...
Contents: The Mystery of Breakthrough Creativity; Outing the Mind; Spaces to Think With; Genius, Imagination, and the Nature of Mind; The Fools on the Hill; Darwinian Networks, or Why the Fit Get Fitter; The Mathematical Ecology of Creativity; Sex and the Single Doll; Think Different; The Networked Dynamics of Risk; The Triumph of the Imagination; Robots, Poets, and the Law of Minimal Effort; Leadership, Imagination, and the Art of the Long Bet; Notes; Bibliography; Index; About the Author
The core concept (at least in my mind) of this book is the power of networks, of "idea-spaces" that allow seemingly disconnected patterns to form new realities. Ogle uses various examples, such as Crick and Watson figuring out the structure of DNA and Picasso's cubism in his paintings, to show how different idea-spaces influenced the discovery and direction of these individuals. The particular items that became the driving force for these people were there for anyone to see, and in fact many others viewed the same things. But no one else made the combinations and leaps that linked these various concepts in ways that changed the landscape. The story of Crick and Watson is especially revealing for Ogle's premise. Neither Crick or Watson were exceptional in their own research. What they did better than anyone else was to view what others had done, and then synthesize it into a new supposition, going beyond what anyone else had done on their own. So instead of creativity being confined to the focused work of one person, it instead becomes a result of casting a wide net to bring in and merge concepts that may not cross the boundaries on their own.
As I tend to be more pragmatic than theoretical, there were parts of this book that were a bit much for me. Many of the discussions of modern art and what the artists were trying to express seemed to be beyond me. Looking at a fuzzy painting and reading in vast amounts of emotions and meanings doesn't work in this mind. But understanding the rise of the personal computer, as well as how Barbie became a cultural icon were interesting and useful. And seeing my world as a network of idea-spaces is a different twist on how I perceive my environment. I have no doubt that Ogle's ideas will continue to influence the way I think for quite some time...
Excellent!.......2007-07-22
I have been reading and re-reading this book for over two weeks. It is probably fair to say it's more than I bargained for - lots of fundamental reading here, which provides the foundations for the authors well-reasoned integration. My only humble suggestion to the author is that he provide a mindmap or a similar summary on his blog. That might be very useful for those who are interested in starting to applying his teachings. Great book that should be on everyone's nightstand!
Interesting but confused.......2007-07-14
I found this book interesting in its descriptions of how innovations such as the PC, the printing press and Barbie(!) came about - it was fascinating to see how these things evolved and the confluence of ideas, influences and accidents which led to them.
However, I found the author's central thesis to be confused and (as a research mathematician myself in graph theory), I felt that he did not really understand the mathematics upon which he relies so heavily. He did not seem to understand that 'idea spaces' are not 'real', that they do not interact autonomously, but only through the mediation of a human mind. It is human minds that are exposed to unique sets of ideas and connect them together. While the ideas may be out there in human artefacts such as books, websites, machines, artworks etc, it takes a human mind to put them together. If you read his case studies without his theory, it becomes very clear that this is in fact the case. Lock a whole lot of books in a room and see how many ideas they come up with. Clearly none since books are simply a means of passively storing knowledge and it takes a human to 'activate' that knowledge. While network theory may deal with abstract relationships between nodes and their connections, when applied to the real world, these nodes are 'things': people, species, businesses, servers, power stations, cities, communities, chemicals whatever, not abstractions such as 'idea spaces'.
So overall, while I found the book interesting, I didn't find the thesis particulalry convincing and found that it obscured rather then elucidated the lessons to be learned from the author's examples.
Book Description
Written by the first of a new breed of ``quality gurus,'' Fourth Generation Management is a clear, concise synthesis of the best of current management practice and a host of dynamic prescriptions for the future. The centerpiece of the book is the ``Joiner Triangle'', which provides readers with a conceptual framework upon which to build a new corporate culture--one that positions companies for growing productivity and profit in the years ahead. Focusing on quality as defined by the customer. . .a scientific, databased approach to management. . .and the creation of long-term, team-spirited relationships both internally and externally--the Joiner Triangle is already gaining credence as the management philosophy of tomorrow. And that's only the beginning. Readers will learn why process is more important than short-term results, how to foster a working environment in which all employees feel like winners, a new way of looking at data, processes, and variation, and much more. In short, this major release by a widely respected quality improvement leader is the business person's blueprint for the next phase of the ``Quality Revolution.''
Customer Reviews:
I highly recommend this book .......2007-09-09
Brian Joiner really captures the key concepts leaders need to understand to lead their businesses today. His explanation of variation should open many eyes and help many businesses avoid over-correction and over-compensation for what is just occurring. And that is just one of the many useful concepts this book provides.
This book is a classic and should be core to business school curricula.
All businesses have costs but waste is optional........2007-08-22
This is an excellent book, with many breakthrough ideas explained in a very compelling way.
I recommend this book for practitioners working with Lean, Systems thinking or general operational improvement, however, if you are into six-sigma you will not understand the profound knowledge this book contains.
There are a many reasons why I like this book, it has some memorable insights and phrases. Such as `don't work on costs, work on the causes of costs'.
Joiner also highlights how most managers manage their business without any theory behind their actions.. `We should be thankful if the action of management is based on theory...'
Joiner relentlessly pushes the notion that organisations must be `understood and managed as a `system', while developing process thinking, making decisions on customer data and understanding the theory of variation'.
He then goes on to say that the typical management response to calls for improvement is to either 1) distort the system or 2) distort the figures instead of improving the system.
Most people in the world of operational improvement will have come across the Deming PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) cycle, Joiner explains and supports this process very well but he adds a significant insight, what he says is, that when starting to make improvements you must start at CHECK, in fact he devotes a whole chapter to this important variation on Deming's PDCA theme. `Performing check is what most organisations fail to do. Check uncovers things we would just as soon not know, it forces us to look at the huge wastes in each of our activities and exposes it all, and the non productive or plain stupid things we have unknowingly been doing for years. It creates the gut level energy to do a better job of taking Action, of Planning and Doing'.
Joiner states that `a fundamental tenant is that nothing happens in a predictable, sustainable way unless you build mechanisms that cause it to happen in a predictable sustained way'
He talks about listening to management conversations for insights into the organisations real intent and focus he says ... `The way top management spends its time and the questions they ask of each other and the rest of the organisation is critical in determining the focus of the organisation.'
The book goes on to explain how to reduce process variation, the sections about how managers respond to variation would be amusing if they were not real, i.e. how managers work on the people instead of working on the system and the injustice that results in addition to the loss in organisational performance.
A good example of system variation resulting in perverse decisions and behaviour is illustrated by an example Joiner uses in telling a real story about a bank teller, who on several occasions got rewarded for her performance and at other times chastised....finally, she was unlucky enough to loose her job. Later, when talking to a friend she said that she never understood why she being praised because she hadn't done anything different and likewise the chastisement. Further conversation revealed that she had been a victim of system variation, the performance factors were attributed to her and not where they should have been that is to the system in which she worked. Essentially she had lost the Variation Lottery. He quotes Dr. Lloyd Nelson `failure to understand variation is the central problem of management'
Joiner also wallops the inappropriate use of standards (accreditation schemes like ISO and BSI) because they are a barrier to improvement and creativity. He argues that standards far from improving the organisation often result in a loss of performance. `They stifle creativity, deflect attention from customers, increase red tape and make work inflexible, while providing only the minimum acceptable outputs'
When it comes to people motivation he states that `to optimise the organisation as a whole, intrinsic motivation works better that rewards and punishment'
Finally he states that in order to get `better results you must have better methods' and he goes on to explain what those methods are.
This is a fine book, with excellent practical ideas as long as you see people as an asset capable of improving their own workplace and not as a cost to be `managed'.
A Good Read!.......2001-03-20
To survive in today's business environment, it's not enough to just keep improving - you have to do it faster than the other guy does. Brian L. Joiner provides valuable direction in how to get better faster. This approach transcends goal-based management by focusing on the needs of the customer. Only then do apparent contradictions between customer service and cost-cutting become manageable again. The author admits that the teachings of management guru W. Edwards Deming heavily influences his advice. We at getAbstract recommend this very helpful work to managers searching for a more enlightened, more effective approach. It will be particularly useful for those who need a strong rationale to do what they already think is right.
Practical and Realistic.......2000-03-01
Joiner, being Deming's former protégé, has not let the latter down by the technical content of this book. It is straightforward and realistic in its teachings and does not glorify the illustrious side of 'Quality' and its affiliated managerial principles. Most managers should find it relatively easy and practical enough to apply.
A manual well written.
I wish every senior manager would read this book........1999-09-16
While I think the title "Fourth Generation Management" overstates its impact, I wish every senior manager in corporate America would read this book. Many of today's larger corporations are filled with managers so busy fighting for their own promotion (or survival) that their decisions and actions fail to move the organization towards its goals. Adding to the problem is a general laziness in the thought processes displayed by many career-minded individuals. Further compounding the problem is the mindless tampering that always seems to backfire, resulting in increased costs and waste. In this very readable book, Brian Joiner provides solid explanations for these phenomena and offers insight into how to address these issues. As a management consultant, I often recommend this book to my clients. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me - adamleft@webspan.net.
Book Description
The future is happening today, and the most successful organizations will be those that understand the dynamics of the "big picture" in which their decisions are being made. This book describes how to understand and influence that picture. Irene Sanders pioneered the application of chaos theory and complexity to strategic thinking -- the most essential skill in today's fast-paced business environment. Now, in this straightforward, easy-to-read book, she shows how the most up-to-date strategic thinking is done, and how you can begin using it in your enterprise.
Sanders' original and practical approach moves far beyond traditional forecasting, futuring and scenario-building. The new science of chaos and complexity has shown scientists and business professionals alike the importance of looking at the world as a whole system, rather than as a collection of deterministic principles. Consequently, the human mind -- through the integration of intuition and intellect -- is now recognized as the only information processor capable of understanding the level of complexity in today's global business environment. By engaging the mind's eye through the use of visual thinking, Sanders shows you how to develop insight about the present and foresight about the future, thereby allowing you to see and influence the future as it is emerging. The new planning paradigm presented in Strategic Thinking and the New Science is nothing less than a transformation of the science of business.
For the first time in history, we have the knowledge, tools and techniques to develop visual thinking as the essential insight/foresight skill of the future. In addition to breakthroughs neuroscientists have made about brain-mind interactions, artists and psychologists are revealing the role of imagery in the creative process. And now, the new field of scientific visualization brings all of this information together with computer graphics to demonstrate how visual images can be used to engage our imaginations, enhance learning -- and stimulate our deeper levels of awareness.
In this groundbreaking book, Sanders is the first to define the new model of strategic thinking -- a model that is bound to revolutionize organizations of all types as they begin to see and influence their futures -- today.
Customer Reviews:
Didn't do it for me.......2005-08-20
I can honestly say that this was one of the poorest strategic planning books that I have ever read. The substance of it could have been boiled down to 10 or 20 pages. There is substantial interesting historical information at the front end, which was enlightening, but utterly unrelated to the book's topic. Save your money...
Blog Page Needed for Authors.......2005-02-24
Amazon needs to add a Blog spot for authors to respond to reviewers and engage with readers. Because I still do a lot of writing in this subject area, I typically either email and/or call reviewers who write a less-than-favorable review of my book. What I want to know is how my book could have responded more fully to their questions or concerns, and what, from their perspective, would have made my book more useful. Their comments and suggestions are almost always interesting and helpful. Other times, it's clear to me that the reviewer just took an opportunity to take a broadside swing at me and my work, or to get their name on amazon.com. and often in the list of "amazon's top 1000 reviewers," whatever that means. In other words, reviewers often use the amazon site for my book to promote their own name or work. So, my suggestion to Amazon and to all other authors is that we encourage amazon.com to set up a Blog site for authors to respond to reviewers comments and to engage with readers. The reviews have an impact on the sale and credibility of the author's work. So, it only seems fair to ask that "we" the authors have an opportunity to respond publically to critical reviews. It would also be very interesting to engage with readers who have ideas, insights or questions, but choose not to submit a review. Also, because it's an unfortunate fact that publishers use amazon.com sales and rankings as a "key indicator" in terms of future contracts, it only seems reasonable and current with 21st century technolgoy that amazon.com find a way to increase the interactivity between authors, reviewers and other readers.
Great on warm up, but didn't delivery on the promise.......2005-02-23
It seems that there were two authors, or at least two different books welded together. The first book was an excellent background on complexity theory and how it applies to business. This part was excellent. But the book promised "insight" and "foresight" - the abilities to understand and then the ability to predict.
But the book doesn't deliver on the ability to derive insight or predict. First, the how-to part of the book starts near the end of the book and is presented quickly and without much detail. Second, other than one page of questions to ask yourself when preparing the author's format of a mind map, there was no magic, few detailed procedures, and little methodology to speak of.
I waited for this great epihany of understanding after the big build up on the history of thinking and complexity theory. I followed the author through Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and up through recent thinkers and on to New Mexico's complexity wizards. Then the book shifted down into a simplistic reading style with buzzwords on every page.
I felt that the author may indeed be able to lead groups through her tiny methodology and derive some benefit. But as a text on how to derive insight or create a forecast the book falls short. Buy this book for the interesting background on thinking, philosophy, knowledge, and complexity. Then you'll be happy if the insight/foresight system doesn't delight.
John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
Linking understanding to complexity theory over the ages........2004-04-21
Besides being a wonderful strategy resource for any organization, this book provides an absolutely wonderful view into the epistimology of complexity theory. From the presocratics to current day paradigms, Irene Sanders has collected a detailed and readable history of knowledge and its marriage to the complex world. This book is highly recommended for practitioners, academics working on their dissertation (like myself), and those with an eager interest in complexity theory.
Great Primer and Guide.......2003-01-19
This is an excellent book, serving as both primer and guide to the application of complexity and chaos theory to business and organizational strategic thinking. Ms. Sanders navigates the history of the development of "new science" with skill and genius, drawing in the novice and reminding the experienced of key milestones in history - all in an accessible and compelling language... and that is only the first half of the book. In the second half she makes the science of chaos and complexity applicable - not simply as a new technique for planning, but more importantly, as a new way of thinking about the world. Her techniques (the Futurescape), based on developing "insight about the present, foresight about the future" give new life to strategic planning sessions. I have seen the book used in a variety of settings - from Graduate School of Social Work classes to urban leadership planning sessions - and its techniques are equally effective across a wide variety of audiences. Though her command of the subject is impressive, one notices that this author wrote a book that is meant to be used, not one meant to show off her considerable knowledge. Use it if you want to enliven planning sessions, want a new way of viewing the world, want to engage a diverse group, need a compelling visual tool...Great book.
Average customer rating:
- Revitalize your strategy development
- A Classic
- Basic contradictions weaken the book's credibility
- New Thinking Indeed!
- A good concept with disappointing substance
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Strategic Renaissance: New Thinking and Innovative Tools to Create Great Corporate Strategies Using Insights from History and Science
Evan Matthew Dudik
Manufacturer: Amer Management Assn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Strategy & Competition
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
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Leadership
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
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Management
| Management & Leadership
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Planning & Forecasting
| Management & Leadership
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Systems & Planning
| Management & Leadership
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General
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Entrepreneurship
| Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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ASIN: 0814405517 |
Book Description
Great business strategies, like great discoveries, are inspired acts of creation, brilliantly synthesizing disparate ideas into something surprising and new.
In the history of science, think of John Snow's inspiration to chart London's cholera outbreak on a city map, thus pinpointing the city's water systems as the disease-spreading culprit...and founding the science of epidemiology in the process. In the world of business, look to Fred Smith's hub-and-spoke overnight delivery concept, an unheard of idea that gave birth to FedEx--and an indispensable service the world never knew it needed!
STRATEGIC RENAISSANCE adds to the roster of great discoveries by linking the formation of business strategy to such fields as science, philosophy, and history--to supply an original and sophisticated new approach to strategic thinking.
The book uncovers the principles and guidelines--along with an abundance of hard-hitting examples--for moving beyond an outdated "sustainable competitive advantage" model and embracing a dynamic "opportunity creation and exploitation" approach. Readers learn how to:
* Dissect the four key elements of a great business strategy * Generate, test, and refine strategic hypotheses--the kind that outmaneuver the conventional approaches of competitors * Develop strategic breakthroughs, decide which to pursue, and exploit the winners * Understand how corporate culture can sabotage effective strategy, and ensure that doesn't happen * Plus 81 "do's and don'ts" on the road to a great corporate strategy.
Customer Reviews:
Revitalize your strategy development.......2006-01-27
Is your corporate strategy stuck in the mold of Sustainable Competitive Advantage, that is becoming rapidly outmoded? Do you find that really creative ideas are stifled by your corporate culture? Do you find yourself relying on imitating your competitor's strategies, and brainstorming in dead-end circles? Evan M. Dudik is offering a better way to develop strategy within your organization by creating and exploiting opportunities. He has identified four guidelines for developing strategy:
1. The strategic hypothesis: create a strategic hypothesis about something vital and central to the company. Ask yourself the question, "If this strategy were used, would it be vital to the company?" Then ask yourself what would be even more vital. Cut to the core of what your company needs to create a successful strategy.
2. The if-then statement: Recognize that your strategy must be conditional. Create an if-then statement where the "if" outlines concrete actions that are expected to produce the "then," the desired result.
3. The pivot and the hammer: this is an old military strategy. The point where you decide to concentrate your effort is the hammer. The point where you are already strong enough to play defense is the pivot. Identify the positions where you can successfully and easily defend your market position. Pull extra resources off of your defensive position to implement your offensive position.
4. The principle of complementarity: The elements of your strategy need to complement what your company already does.
A Classic.......2003-04-22
Evan Dudik has made a critical contribution to the strategy field with an examination on how to recognize if a strategy is good (meaning, has a rock solid chance of success). If Mr Dudik had been a Harvard Business School professor, this book would be on the bestseller list and Mr. Dudik could command consulting fees ten times as great as he is now. Maybe it is not too late....
Using the philosopher Karl Popper's approach as a guide Mr. Dudik draws a parrallel between scientific theory and strategy. Like a theory, a strategy cannot be proved at all. Instead they both can prove their greatness by their "great explanatory power coupled with great specificity about what observations...would make the theory false."
Mr. Dudik's insight is to apply this concept to the cause-effect relationship that must exist between the assumptions on which a strategy is based and the results the strategy is supposed to lead to. That cause-effect relationship he says is best expressed as an IF... THEN statement. For example, "IF I enter the market with a product of equal performance than the leader and at 20% discount, THEN I will gain 5 points of market share." It is not enough to express it that way, the cause-effect relationships need to be proven correct by testing and whatever other means that exist. Most companies express a strategy as above but never bother to go to that step of proving that cause-effect relationship and making that connection compelling. In other words, most strategies are built on quick sand and stay at the level of "pray and hope": "IF I enter the market with a product of equal performance than the leader and at 20% discount, THEN (I HOPE and I will PRAY) I will gain 5 points of market share."
I happened to have read Mr. Dudik's book right before a meeting with a client who was looking for help in strengtheneing his strategy. Summarizing what he presented as an IF...THEN statemnt, and pointing to the various assumptions he was making in the cause-effect relationship was extremely valuable.
This IF...THEN approach is by itself worth the cost of the book and the 5 stars I am giving it. There are many other areas that Mr. Dudk's cover. Most books I have read on strategy focus on how to develop one, regardless of whether it can work or not. This book is different. It focus on the "greatness" quality of the stated strategy. You can use all the tools that exist (like SWOT, balanced score cards, core competencies and the like) but if there is one critical cause-effect relationship relationship that is false, the entire edifice can collapse. Mr. Dudik shows us how to avoid the trap.
Mr. Dudik's book is a classic, and like all classics it needs to read and reread a regular basis.
Basic contradictions weaken the book's credibility.......2002-10-08
I am a big believer in the use of metaphor and historical examples to frame strategy questions. Consequently, I was excited by the premise of this book - using ideas from science and history to build innovative strategies. By the time I finished the first chapter, though, this excitement had dissipated. Two issues surfaced in the first chapter:
Dudik starts by emphasizing a flaw common to most strategy books - relying on a sea of examples to justify a particular perspective. He argues that relying on examples is flawed, because of the potential for distortion and selectivity. For the moment, ignore the fact that both inductive and deductive reasoning have a place in scientific inquiry. Instead, my concern here is that author then proceeds to use his own sea of examples to justify his own framework.
The second issue is related - he condemns theories that aren't suitable to testing. Citing Karl Popper, the author notes that many theories - e.g., Freudianism and Marxism - are not readily testable. As such, they become matters of belief. Dudik use this rationale to argue that strategy theories should be testable. The argument is a reasonable one, and he shows how this can help firms uncover assumptions behind a mission or a strategy. Subsequently, though, he offers his own model of strategy - the Hammer and Pivot. As far as I can tell, it is no more testable than these other theories he critiques. His own recommendation to carefully try and falsify a theory is also ignored.
The bottom line, then, is not to trust an untestable model supported by countless anecdotes. I could not get past this basic contradiction.
More generally, I did not find much in the way of new thinking here. Many of the topics have been covered better elsewhere - e.g., in the context of sustainable advantage, Charles Fine has a much more insightful assessment in Clockspeed, and Dudik largely dismisses the role of human capital and culture as the basis of an advantage. Other recommendations are scarcely novel. Some of his recommendations include: stretch goals improve performance; anonymous participation lowers inhibitions in a discussion group. Finally, most of the parallels come from military history - a different orientation than one would expect from the book summary.
New Thinking Indeed!.......2002-02-06
I have been attempting to write you for several days regarding my impressions of SR. Each time I would think I had read enough to make a comment; I would be hurled into another captivating chapter. I resigned that I would have to finish the book before e-mailing you. I finished it last evening!
When I sat down to write you, I almost felt like I was writing a review of a Broadway play and not a strategic planning book. Phrases like, "Wow," "Fabulous" and "Spell-Binding" come to mind. The book is well-crafted, humorous, thought-provoking, and cuts to very heart of what is not working in popular management circles.
I have a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and Master's Degree in Sociology and have worked in private counseling and a psychiatric hospital setting. I found your views on TMT dynamics and business culture to be fascinating and insightful. Thanks for confirming my belief that there is no substitute for the "big picture." I am now a reconfirmed "generalist."
I referred the book to a friend of mine in Orlando and he read several items from your web site and ordered two copies immediately. I plan to take several days and go back through my copy so as to make notes and jot down creative ideas related to my current job.
Please accept my sincere thanks for sharing a significant part of your personal and professional life.
Robert C. Coop
Volaris Online
Business Planning
A good concept with disappointing substance.......2001-07-29
At first, I was intrigued by the title and the idea of using insights from history and science to formulate corporate strategy. However, disappointment set in already in the first chapter. It gave the impression that the whole strategic concept was based on a "falsifiable strategic hypothesis" with little room for imagination and creative thinking. The historic lessons appeared also to be scarce and somewhat academic. I ran out of incentive to complete reading the book. As a fellow McKinsey alumnus and a 'student of the arts', I had expected something better than that.
Average customer rating:
- A highly accessible introduction to game theory.
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Bargaining games: A new approach to strategic thinking in negotiations
John Keith Murnighan , and
J. Keith Murnighan
Manufacturer: W. Morrow
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A highly accessible introduction to game theory........2000-06-01
Much of life consists of strategic interactions between two or more individuals. In many cases, each individual's choices will be constrained by what that individual expects others to do. Game theory provides formal models of strategic interactions that simplify social settings by stripping out irrelevant details. As such, the stories game theorists tell often seem highly unrealistic. Yet, a theory is properly judged by its predictive power with respect to the phenomena it purports to explain, however, not by whether it is a valid description of an objective reality. As Milton Friedman put it, "the relevant question to ask about the assumptions of a theory is not whether they are descriptively realistic, for they never are, but whether they are sufficiently good approximations for the purpose in hand." The claim of game theorists is that simple models allow us to make powerful predictions about behavior.
In "Bargaining Games," management professor Keith Murnighan wrote what is still the most accessible introduction to game theory. (Unfortunately, much of the game theory literature is almost totally inaccessible to the non-specialist--it is dominated by the sort of formal modelling some of us refer to as "recreational mathematics.") The academic will find much that is useful here, but so will anybody who wants to be a better negotiator. Indeed, single most the striking thing about this text is its combination of academic rigor and everyday practicality.
To take but a single example, consider Murnighan's treatment of prominent solutions to indeterminate games. Suppose you were going to sell a used car. The seller wants to end up with at least $10,000 for the car. The canny seller knows that people are instinctively attracted to prominent solutions, such as round numbers. The canny seller therefore sets a price of $10,650, anticipating that the prospective buyer's first offer probably will be $10,000--because that is the nearest (lower) prominent round number. They will then end up somewhere in the middle, but the seller was assured of making at least $10,000 on the sale. The book is full of little gems like this one.
In sum, highly recommended.
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Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader (Voices & Visions - New Thinking for the New Century Series)
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New Directions in Strategic Thinking
Robert O'Neill
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