14 Quotes by Richard P. Rumelt

Success leads to laxity and bloat and this leads to decline. Few avoid this tragic arch. Only where there is starvation will you find a tightly crafted and integrated set of actions and policies.

At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.

A good strategy honestly acknowledges the challenges being faced and provides an approach to overcoming them.

The most basic idea of strategy is the application of strength against weakness. Or, if you prefer, strength applied to the most promising opportunity.

It is hard to show your skill as a sailor when there is no wind.

The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.

The first step of making strategy real is figuring out the big ‘aha’ to gain sustainable competitive advantage – in other words, a significant, meaningful insight about how to win.

Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does.

Despite the roar of voices wanting to equate strategy with ambition, leadership, “vision,” planning, or the economic logic of competition, strategy is none of these. The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.