Professor Richard Rumelt, an authority in strategy
execution says “Bad strategy ignores the power of choice and focus, trying
instead to accommodate a multitude of conflicting demands and interests… it
also covers up its failure to guide by embracing the language of broad goals,
ambition, vision, and values.” He recommends avoiding four pitfalls to avoid a
bad strategy:
1. Failure to face the problem: “A
strategy is an approach to overcoming obstacles. If you fail to identify and analyse
the obstacles, you don’t have a strategy”. This in nutshell is the cores reason
for many a strategy to go bad from the initial formulation stage to the subsequent
execution stage.
2. Mistaking goals for strategy: “Setting
goals without a supporting strategy can mislead the organization”. Rumelt cites a military general who may
justly ask his troupes for “one last push,” but the goal still needs to be
supported by a clearly defined strategy.
A good strategy will create the conditions that will make the “push”
effective and worthy of the effort required”.
3. Bad goals galore: A long list of
goals cobbled together at planning session, or a set of ideas that no one has a
clue about what to do or how to get there, are signs of bad goals. Here the
setting of goals does not facilitate focusing energy on very few high impact items.
Neither these goals build a bridge between the obstacles that are contemplated to
be solved and the required action steps that must be taken within a given time
frame.
4. Fluff: Professor Rumelt defines
Fluff as a “Restatement of the obvious, combined with generous sprinkling of
buzzwords that masquerade as expertise designed to mask the absence of
thought.” He cites an example of “fluff” from a retail bank which declares “Our
fundamental strategy is one of customer-centric intermediation.”
Avoiding these pitfalls would enable firms to make
good strategy; otherwise these firms would continue to be in the bad strategy bracket
Cheers!
Muthu
Ashraff Rajulu
Business Strategist
Mobile: + 94 777 265677
E-mail: cosmicgems@gmail.com
Blog: Business
Strategist
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