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Description
Making strategy requires undertaking major—often irreversible—decisions aimed at long-term success in an uncertain future. All leaders must formulate a clear course of action, yet many lack confidence in their ability to think systematically about their strategy. They struggle to apply the abstract lessons offered by conventional approaches to strategic analysis to their unique contexts.
Making Great Strategy resolves these challenges with a straightforward, readily applicable framework. Jesper B. Sørensen and Glenn R. Carroll show that one factor underlies all sustainably successful strategies: a logically coherent argument that connects resources, capabilities, and environmental conditions to desired outcomes. They introduce a system for formulating and managing strategy through a set of three core activities: visualization, formalization and logic, and constructive argumentation. These activities can be implemented in any organization and are illustrated through examples and case studies from well-known companies such as Apple, Walmart, and The Economist.
This book shows that while great strategic thinking is hard, it is not a mystery. Widely applicable and relevant for managers and leaders at all levels, especially executive teams charged with setting the course of their organizations, it is essential reading for anyone faced with practical problems of strategic management.
Making strategy requires undertaking major—often irreversible—decisions aimed at long-term success in an uncertain future. All leaders must formulate a clear course of action, yet many lack...
Making strategy requires undertaking major—often irreversible—decisions aimed at long-term success in an uncertain future. All leaders must formulate a clear course of action, yet many lack confidence in their ability to think systematically about their strategy. They struggle to apply the abstract lessons offered by conventional approaches to strategic analysis to their unique contexts.
Making Great Strategy resolves these challenges with a straightforward, readily applicable framework. Jesper B. Sørensen and Glenn R. Carroll show that one factor underlies all sustainably successful strategies: a logically coherent argument that connects resources, capabilities, and environmental conditions to desired outcomes. They introduce a system for formulating and managing strategy through a set of three core activities: visualization, formalization and logic, and constructive argumentation. These activities can be implemented in any organization and are illustrated through examples and case studies from well-known companies such as Apple, Walmart, and The Economist.
This book shows that while great strategic thinking is hard, it is not a mystery. Widely applicable and relevant for managers and leaders at all levels, especially executive teams charged with setting the course of their organizations, it is essential reading for anyone faced with practical problems of strategic management.
Advance Praise
"Sørensen and Carroll have developed an incredibly powerful yet simple way to build a compelling corporate strategy. After reading the book you’ll wonder why everyone doesn’t do it this way.
"
-Andy Rachleff, cofounder, CEO, and executive chairman, Wealthfront; previously cofounder and senior partner, Benchmark Capital.
"Sørensen and Carroll have developed an incredibly powerful yet simple way to build a compelling corporate strategy. After reading the book you’ll wonder why everyone doesn’t do it this way.
"
"Sørensen and Carroll have developed an incredibly powerful yet simple way to build a compelling corporate strategy. After reading the book you’ll wonder why everyone doesn’t do it this way.
"
-Andy Rachleff, cofounder, CEO, and executive chairman, Wealthfront; previously cofounder and senior partner, Benchmark Capital.
This book covers a very important topic. However, it takes too much time to explain the concepts and uses too much text. More visuals and differentiated approach to text (some highlights or boxes during the explanations) would help convene the message and reduce the size of the book. Again, a very important and normally not discussed topic on how to map the strategy. More examples would also help but in a more visual appealing presentation.
Was this review helpful?
Reviewer 186721
If you have taken logic class, this book will be a breeze and wonder why strategy has been seen as an art and not looked at more formally as a science. This book provides the formal structure to strategy with examples of companies and scenarios where somethings worked as a result of all the needed conditions and not just some magic. This means that as long as you take care of all the necessary and sufficient conditions, your staretgy rules will work for you.
Was this review helpful?
Theodore K, Media/Journalist
There is no shortage of theories regarding the proper basis for a winning corporate strategy. You can set sail on blue oceans with W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, hone core competencies with C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel, and get competitive with Michael Porter, to call out just a few of the fashionable options. But how do you transform the theories into a unique strategy capable of driving your company’s long-term success?
This is the question Stanford business school professors Jesper Sørensen and Glenn Carroll address in Making Great Strategy. It’s a book about strategic due diligence. And it fills an important gap in the literature by caring not a whit about a company’s strategy per se, but rather focusing entirely on how rigorously that strategy has been formulated and how thoroughly it has been vetted.
Toward this end, Sørensen and Carroll define strategy as a logical argument that coherently articulates “how the firm’s resources and activities combine with external conditions to allow it to create and capture value.” They further assert that “the development, communication, and maintenance of a strategy argument is best achieved through an open process of actually arguing within the organization, engaging in productive debate.” Read the rest here: https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Arguing-your-way-to-better-strategy
Was this review helpful?
Featured Reviews
Tiago S, Reviewer
This book covers a very important topic. However, it takes too much time to explain the concepts and uses too much text. More visuals and differentiated approach to text (some highlights or boxes during the explanations) would help convene the message and reduce the size of the book. Again, a very important and normally not discussed topic on how to map the strategy. More examples would also help but in a more visual appealing presentation.
Was this review helpful?
Reviewer 186721
If you have taken logic class, this book will be a breeze and wonder why strategy has been seen as an art and not looked at more formally as a science. This book provides the formal structure to strategy with examples of companies and scenarios where somethings worked as a result of all the needed conditions and not just some magic. This means that as long as you take care of all the necessary and sufficient conditions, your staretgy rules will work for you.
Was this review helpful?
Theodore K, Media/Journalist
There is no shortage of theories regarding the proper basis for a winning corporate strategy. You can set sail on blue oceans with W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, hone core competencies with C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel, and get competitive with Michael Porter, to call out just a few of the fashionable options. But how do you transform the theories into a unique strategy capable of driving your company’s long-term success?
This is the question Stanford business school professors Jesper Sørensen and Glenn Carroll address in Making Great Strategy. It’s a book about strategic due diligence. And it fills an important gap in the literature by caring not a whit about a company’s strategy per se, but rather focusing entirely on how rigorously that strategy has been formulated and how thoroughly it has been vetted.
Toward this end, Sørensen and Carroll define strategy as a logical argument that coherently articulates “how the firm’s resources and activities combine with external conditions to allow it to create and capture value.” They further assert that “the development, communication, and maintenance of a strategy argument is best achieved through an open process of actually arguing within the organization, engaging in productive debate.” Read the rest here: https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Arguing-your-way-to-better-strategy
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