Strategy is still what it has always been: the art of taking action under the pressure of the most difficult conditions.
Stephen Bungay, Hult International Business School, author
Takeaways of Note:
5 myths re: strategic thinking…
1- Strategy is about the long-term – far from being about things we are going to do in the future, strategy is about what we are going to do now in order to shape the future.
2- Distruptors change strategy all the time – innovation is easily confused with a change in strategic direction
3- Competitive advantage is dead – the full truth is not that competitive advantage is dead, but that you need to rely on multiple advantages rather than just the one.
4- You don’t really need a strategy, you just need to be agile – Agility is not a strategy, it is a capability (a very valuable one with immediate operational benefits); Strategy is not a plan, it is a framework for decision-making, a set of guiding principles to apply as situations evolve.
5- You need a digital strategy – don’t want a strategy for digital, IT, finance, HR or anything else – just a strategy for the business… if you try to optimise the parts you will sub-optimise the whole.