The Strategist

Cynthia Montgomery

4 annotations Jan 2024 data

Chapter 7

  • This organic view of strategy recognizes that whatever constitutes strategic advantage will eventually change. It underscores the difference between defending a firm's added value as established at any given moment and something far more important: ensuring that a firm continues to add value over time. This is what endures—not a particular purpose, a particular advantage, or a particular strategy, but the ongoing need to add value, always.

Chapter 8

  • "Managers who get caught in the trap of overwhelming demands become prisoners of routines," wrote Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, in A Bias for Action
  • Who says, "This is our purpose, not that. This is who we will be. This is why our customers and clients will prefer a world with us rather than without us"? These are the questions the strategist must own. While existence may be given, essence never is.
  • nothing is more important for any firm than a clear sense of purpose, a clear sense of why they matter