Good Strategy-Bad Strategy: Post #13 Strategic Thinking--Keep Your Head

Keeping Your Head: Rumelt provides one of my favorite Rudyard Kipling quotes: “If you keep your head when all about you are losing theirs….” Rumelt contends that good strategy emerges from independent assessment, insight, and purpose. Bad strategy follows the herd headlong over the cliff. Remember the technology Dot-com bubble and subsequent burst of the 90s? Social herding presses us to accept “what is” because the herd says it is so. Taking the “inside view” (strategy-hypothesis testing), a wise leader pays attention to data and results of tests and not to the “echo chamber” of the crowd.

Good Strategy-Bad Strategy: Post #12 Strategic Thinking--Using Your Head

Thinking Strategically:
Using Your Head: To use strategy well you must: 1) fight your own narrow (myopic) thinking; 2) question your own judgment; and 3) make and record your judgments. To help these three activities, Rumelt again discusses using the kernel (diagnosis, an overall guiding philosophy, and taking coherent action). He also mentions problem solving as a way of attacking or diagnosing the problem. Next, he offers “create and destroy” as a critical thinking technique. Developing a strong counter to your own strategy—whether a real panel of devil’s advocates or ones in your head—will help vet ideas that can stand up to challenge. Finally, good judgment comes from self knowledge and knowing others, as well as anticipating and testing your own thoughts. Taking a stand, defending, and then modifying your position are important skills for all leaders to learn.