Richard P. Rumelt

*Author: Richard P. Rumelt
**Strategy consultant
*Publishing: Crown Business:2011
*Central Proposition:
*****"A good strategy has an essential logical structure...the kernel: a diagnosis, a guiding policy and a coherent action." - 7,77
***Diagnosis: What's going on here?  Comprehending the situation - 79
***Guiding policy: a method of grappling with situation and ruling out "vast array of possible actions" - 84
***Coherence - 87-92
**My thought: Sounds a lot like JOPP
*Supporting Information
**Good strategy is all about identifying the biggest challenges and developing a coherent approach to overcome them. - 2
**Often, we only look at one half of success - when an org succeeds greatly there is also blocked or failed competition - 24
**A strategy is more than goals: "describing a destination is no substitute for developing a comprehensive road map for how the country will achieve its stated goals." - 34
***My thought: That's all well and good, but what do we do when the goal is all that's stated?  Especially when the military portion is just that: only a portion.  Doesn't have to just be military - what do we do in any org when the higher strategy is incomplete? Does anyone have advice?
****Common reasons for bad strategy - 58
***Hard to make hard choices 
***Templating
***Positive mental attitude is all you need
**Strategy is not a set of slogans - 70
**Sources of power: 95
***Leverage - Get good intel and concentrate on the decisive point (very military) - 98
***Proximate objectives - achievable...take a strong position and create options (doesn't have to be THE answer, just enough to get things flowing and allow for flexibility) - 111
***chain-link systems - ID limfacs & mitigate/strengthen weaknesses - 116-117
***design - good note: resources & tight coordination are partial substitutes for each other (i.e. air power scarcity and centralized control) - 134...beware of abundance of resources allowing strategy to not exist - 136
***focus
***growth
***advantage
***dynamics - BOLO for wave of change to exploit...challenge is not forecasting but understanding past and present - 180
***inertia - fight it...usually falls into inertia of routine (this is the way we do things, use tools, etc.), cultural inertia (mindsets & work norms - 210), or inertia by proxy...customers' inertia...they haven't switched over yet - 212
***entropy
**Beware: "when we do come up with an idea, we tend to spend most of our effort justifying it rather than questioning it." - 267