(2024-07-08) Martin The Five Deadliest Strategy Myths

Roger Martin: The Five Deadliest Strategy Myths. I started out trying to order them from most to least damaging, but in the end, it is hard to make a case that one is definitively deadlier than the next. I would encourage you to take them collectively as the five myths you should reject and should not let control your life or that of your company. (Business Strategy)

1) A List of Initiatives is a Strategy

A list of initiatives is the output of a process called planning, which I explain in my famous viral video, A Plan is Not a Strategy.

The fatal shortcomining with a list of initiatives is that it is focused on the things you control and not on the one terribly important thing that you can’t: customers. That is the tricky thing, the hard thing. Making up a list of non-stupid things that are fully in your control is dead easy. Deciding to invest in a set of activities that compels customers to act as you wish — that is hard, and exceedingly valuable.

2) You can Prove that your Strategy is Correct

there is a dominant (and highly bureaucratic) belief that if you are rigorous enough with your analysis, you can prove (in advance) that your strategy is ‘correct.’ That leads to not doing anything new/different unless you can prove it is ‘correct’ and are certain it will work.

This myth also inspires other related myths, such as the myth that it is useful to spend time and effort on forecasting revenues. Forecasting the future behavior of something over which you have zero control — i.e., with whom customers spend their money — is a silly waste of time

3) Analytically Strong People are Better Strategists

In strategy, the first true strategist was Boston Consulting Group (BCG) founder Bruce Henderson, and he built his firm with analytical wunderkind, originally mainly Baker Scholars from Harvard Business School

Despite the nearly universal assumption that a better analyst would be a better strategist, there has never been any demonstration that there is validity to this view. Analysts hire analysts in a self-referential orgy.

The problem is that the greatest strategists in business history — whether Steve Jobs or Fred Smith — imagine a future that does not now exist and therefore can’t be analyzed — and go on to create it.

Rather than depend on analysis they refuse to be constrained by it. The best strategists realize that their analytical prowess is a shortcoming to be overcome. As my friend AG Lafley always says: ‘analysis can never be more than an aide to my judgment.’ The key to being a great strategist is imagination — not analysis.

4) Strategy is a Zero-Sum Game

Strategy should always seek to produce a positive sum game in which your company succeeds in a particular place (Where-to-Play) in a particular way (How-to-Win) that convinces others to succeed in different places in different ways

5) Strategy is Formulated at the Top & then Executed Below

What is the problem with the myth and why do I find it so damaging? There are many reasons, but I will focus on two of the deadliest.

First is that it lets crappy strategy — analytical exercises that generate lists of initiatives — off the hook by blaming the crappiness on execution: ‘It was a great strategy that was poorly executed.’ (execution problem)

Second it is deeply insulting to the rest of the organization. They are judged to be incapable of doing strategy because that is exclusively the province of top management.