Richard P. Rumelt Quotes

• The single most damaging misconception about strategy is that it is a set of financial performance goals. The so-called "strategies" created by many managements are nothing more than three-to-five year financial performance forecasts. They are then labeled "strategy" and shipped off to the board of directors which goes through the motions of discussing how big the numbers are. Strategy is not your aspirations. Strategy is concerned with how you will arrange your actions and resources to punch through the challenges you face.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Goal, Challenges, Action

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• A good strategy is not always successful, but even an "inappropriate" strategy may be an actual strategy. A "bad strategy" is one that doesn't even try to address an important challenge. Instead, it speaks of aspirations, visions of the future, lays out performance goals, or simply lists a bunch of unconnected actions.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Successful, Goal, Challenges

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• A good strategy focuses efforts on a target, and that focus can only be achieved by not diffusing energy in other directions - that is the meaning of Michael Porter's dictum of "choosing what not to do." At the same time, a good strategy chooses the right target to focus on, not wasting the focus of energy on a target that cannot be affected or that is unimportant - that is the meaning of Drucker's distinction between efficiency and effectiveness.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Focus, Effort, Energy

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• One of the problems many leaders report is a gap between strategy and execution. Usually this "gap" arises because the so-called "strategy" is a set of financial performance goals, not an approach to overcoming challenges. The two key ways to narrow this gap are to avoid bad strategies that fail to explain how to proceed and to establish a proximate objective - something which can be accomplished and which will open the door to further progress.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Goal, Leader, Challenges

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• A real strategy is a coherent mix of policy and action designed to overcome a significant challenge. So a sensible employee might indeed say that they have no idea what the organization's strategy is - because it seems to have none. Senior managers' so-called "strategies" are heavy with aspirations and goals, but light on how resources and strengths will be combined to achieve them.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Senior, Real, Goal

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• Change is difficult and it takes time. It is hard for people to change their own behavior, much less that of others. Change programs normally address attitudes, ideas, and rewards. But the behaviors of people in organizations are also strongly shaped by habits, routines, and social norms. Real change requires new power relationships, new work routines and new habits, not just intent.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Attitude, Real, People

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• As I worked to explain how to avoid bad strategy, I began to see that one cannot really evaluate or criticize a strategy unless there is a fairly clear statement of the problem the strategy is trying to solve.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Trying, Problem, Strategy

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• You overcome the logical resistance to change by proving that a new approach actually works, usually on a small scale.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Overcoming, Logical, Prove

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• A real strategy is not bottom up because it deals with issues that require unexpected or unusual types action, especially of coordination among units.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Real, Action, Unexpected

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• The US needs military/defense, economic, and social strategies. A medium-sized business, by contrast, is normally best off focusing its efforts on a single crucial objective.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Military, Effort, Strategy

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

• I agree with O'Toole that custom and comfort are impediments to change. However, it is important to recognize that resistance to change is logical as well. The new "change masters" literature seems to take change as the norm. It isn't. Humans naturally see change as risky because it is risky, just as mutations in genes are mostly destructive. You would not want to go to work were everything changed every week! The phone system, the office assignments, who reports to who, and the whole set of job expectations.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Office, Expectations, Important

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  4 Copy quote

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