The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs

Don't be fooled by some of the reviews that say this is nothing more than the basic MBA material or simply a book on Strategy. Cynthia Montgomery has captured the very essence of what is required to move a business to the next level and while it might be based on years of teaching and research at Harvard Business School it the message that underlies each story, tool and technique that is missed by the majority of MBA students. The book has a very easy to follow and great style. Analogies are well thought through, develop into the teaching method nicely and follow the case-in-point style of learning. In fact I found myself often relating each of the examples back to my own business and realising where the fundamentals of the business need to be worked on. But back to the book...the message is relatively simple: - Have a clear, well defined and meaningful purpose; - Create alignment within the business; - Understand the fundamentals that drive success with in alignment with the purpose; - Remember that strategy development start on day 1 and never ends...there is simply no end point where strategy is 'completed'. The wrap up of the book is simple...to be a strategist you must first be a leader...strategy never ends, it is a continuous cycle process where we have a core purpose, a driving forces, a reason for living and we consider how that reason changes the world. This makes it easy to change, adapt and move through the challenges that a competitive landscape offers. From Gucci to IKEA, both businesses had their fair share of challenges and issues...but the ever evolving art of strategy lead them through to be the businesses they are today. Often thanks to the leadership but always thanks to the purpose! So yes...this appears to be MBA 101 but think about it...how many MBA graduates do you know that would not land a job in your business, be able to lead and develop a business to great heights or simply are text book managers but not strategic leaders. The Strategist is aimed squarely at anyone that thinks they know all about strategy because they have an MBA...after all many great strategist do not have an MBA yet we teach their thinking and refer to their success in many MBA classes. This is a great book and yes...I have an MBA and still found myself in awe of the author, the approach and the learnings I took out of this book. A must read for every business person and one that I am sharing with my Leadership Team!

A quick read that helped me distill parts of the strategist role into a clearer picture. The examples provided were helpful in putting business purpose definition into practice and the focus on viewing strategy as an on going process is useful. I would recommend this book to students heading into any business strategy or entrepreneurship course as well as anyone considering the importance of strategy on a day to day basis for their business. On the other hand, I would not recommend this book for someone trying to dive deep into strategy creation or strategic alignment because the book lacks depth in these two areas. Not a criticism, as you can't boil the ocean in one book.

Loved the book from page one. The book is a fantastic tool to i prove your small, medium or large firm. A Strategy can be written in five minutes but be revise for hundreds of years. A Strategy is a living thing that evolves with the society and the challenges of the business. The Stanford professor gives us a fantastic guide on how to change our companies with an ever evolving strategy. The book is full of great examples and business cases showing how a strategy can make you get employees onboard on the road to a successful company.

This book guides senior executives to understand the key meaning and value of being a strategist in this highly turbulent and competitive business environment. The key meaning and value of being a strategist are significant. Without an effective strategist to fare robustly the formulation and implementation of strategic directions, the business could lose its key differentiation in which its diminishing impact on customers and markets as against other direct rivals further weaken its competitiveness. According to Professor Montgomery, a strategist have to possess certain unique criteria. He or she has to understand the industry as well as his or her company. The bold belief widely-adopted by aggressive business leaders that they can utilize best management practices to add value for an acquired company when headwinds are more than tailwinds in the industry might result to unexpected financial fiascos. Moreover, an effective strategist has to identify a purpose for his/her business to answer different thorny but realistic questions such as why it matters to customers in the marketplace. Without a detailed plan to mobilize resources in the value chain with strong leadership skills to generate full employee commitment, the strategist would encounter mounting execution challenges. This book encompasses nuts-and-bolts strategy tools (Five-Force Model, P.27; Strategy Wheel, P.91; SWOT Analysis, P.152) and a useful reference list (Pp.159-163) highlighting all important books and articles on strategy. Professor Montgomery illustrates success and failure of different strategies through different business cases. For example, Masco and IKEA are both furniture players but the former underestimated the competitive forces in the industry and the latter invented a viable purpose to build its difference in capturing big share of the pie. Domenico De Sole (Former CEO) was more successful than Maurizio Gucci in adopting turnaround strategy for Gucci because he could fill the gap between lofty ideas and action to create a system of value with employee's full commitment. Jobs took nonstop responsibility to lead Apple to launch "creative destruction" products (iTunes, iPod, iPad, iPhone). Nowadays business leaders are expected to cope with the changing and turbulent business landscape. They have to penetrate the "uncertainty of veiled situations to evaluate facts, to clarify the unknown, to make decision rapidly, and then to carry them out with strengths and constancy" (P.139). These ongoing tasks become a prerequisite and foundation of all business leaders to get their businesses right. This book is highly recommended to readers who are interested in having a better understanding of how to be an effective strategist.

Cynthia has a writing style that is very interesting, she presents her main concepts using real world stories with enough details for the reader to get involved and understand the point. What she addresses is closer to what a strategist like Bruce Henderson would discuss than Michael Porter. She is distilling the essence of being a strategist. Other authors like Michael Porter is closer to Joel Dean ( a microeconomist) , for he is more like a specialized theoretical microeconomics professor that detailed the ideas/concepts related to the behavior of firms in the economic arena. Her book will help inspire professionals, business leaders to sharpen his/her ideas to develop his own strategies for their companies. For leaders trying to find their way out of a complex situation, it will bring a lot of value and clarity of thought.

What do Harvard Professors teach experienced and successful business leaders? What is it that someone who has successfully led a large organization can learn from going to Harvard for a week each year for three years? Professor Cynthia Montgomery teaches strategy on a course titled the Entrepreneur, Owner, President (EOP) program. If you are a successful entrepreneur, owner or chief executive this book will allow you to participate in that programme from the comfort of your favourite reading chair and derive much of the benefit. What is missing is only the opportunity to interact with other successful executives. The book aims to simulate the personal development aspect of this Harvard experience. Montgomery’s approach presumes that you know what strategy is and have participated in and possibly even led the company’s strategy initiatives. Her starting point is that strategy has devolved into a mechanical activity. Overtime it has becoming a ritual that focuses on formulation rather than implementation. The focus is on getting the analysis right and recording the plan. The plan is then submitted the board, and the process is complete. The role of the Chief Executive as the leader of the strategy has faded. Divisional heads are charged with the execution and the Chief Executive gets back to the multitude of other burning issues. While there is definitely value in engaging a professional strategy facilitator to manage the process, it is the Chief Executive how must own the strategy. It is he, or she, who must approve or disapprove the strategy. Failing to take personal ownership of the strategy is an abrogation of the duty expected of a Chief Executive. The signoff of the strategy document is cannot be the end. Strategy never unfolds successfully without the will and commitment of the Chief Executive. The process requires constant guidance in the unfolding, and firm decision-making at critical points along the way. What is wrong with the strategy process is the disconnection between the role of the Chief Executive and the person in the position of the Chief Executive. Strategy needs to be something deeper and more meaningful to you, the Chief Executive, she believes. What makes this book unusually valuable is the focus on the person and personality of the Chief Executive in the strategy process. This is not a “nice to have” soft issue, it has material and financial consequences on the business that are generally overlooked. In the first exercise described in the book, EOP participants consider an investment decision. A highly successful, second generation hardware manufacturer Masco is sitting on a huge amount of cash. They consider investing heavily into the furniture industry where returns are typically low and the industry is relatively unsophisticated. Masco has a superb management capability that has led to great financial success. In their industry, they have taken unsophisticated products and turned them into valuable brands. The investment Masco will need to make is in the order of $2b. What would you do? After much consideration the majority view of the participants, (a view repeated in every EOP programme,) is to invest in the furniture industry. EOP participants are smart, bold, and courageous people, confident of their ability to deal with tough problems successfully. Montgomery then reveals Masco’s decision. They decided to invest in the dull furniture business confident in their ability to turn it around. However, the result of the decision was the destruction of shareholder wealth with their furniture businesses eventually sold for a mere $650m. There was significant damage to the reputations of Masco’s leadership and a loss of confidence in their ability. What went wrong? The confidence every good strategist needs can so easily mutate into overconfidence. Warren Buffet puts it succinctly: “When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.” Further into the book, Montgomery ask the question, “Does your company matter?” What would happen if you closed today? Would your customers suffer any real loss? How long would it take them, and how difficult would it really be, for them to find another company that could meet those needs as well as you did? Then she presents an example of a company in the furniture industry that does matter, that would be missed if it disappeared, IKEA. This low priced, high value furniture retailer has added, and continues to add meaningfully to the lives of millions of middle class families. It affords an unrivalled style at prices they can afford that is unparalleled by any other supplier. They would be missed if they closed, they matter. Are you the leader your company needs? “My goal in this book,” writes Montgomery, “is to help you develop the skills and sensibilities this role (of chief executive) demands, and to encourage you to answer the question for yourself.” This is what a Harvard Professor can teach experienced and successful business leaders - to ask these hard questions. Readability Light --+-- Serious Insights High -+--- Low Practical High -+--- Low Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

Got a few good nuggets out of the book. Overall it is readable and has some pointers such as defining company's purpose, strategy wheel, focus, etc. for the role of a strategist. The book covers too much of Apple and Steve Jobs as a key learning which one can get a better story from the Steve Job book than this skimmed version. Besides, even if Steve Jobs is a brilliant strategist, not sure if anyone would want to emulate his practices unless one equipped with his mindset and view of the world and people.

After reading this book, I think about strategy very differently than I did before and at a much deeper and more integrated level. How I wish I could have had this book when I was serving as chair of a board of directors several years ago. So often people (including me) talk about strategy when they don't really know how to think about it. What IS strategy, anyway? This book answers that question in an updated, thoughtful and important way. Cynthia Montgomery, the author, shares insights gained from 20 years of teaching accomplished executives and entrepreneurs who attended her executive education classes at the Harvard Business School. One important point she makes is that strategy is at the heart of a leader's role and is a never-ending task that answers the question "THIS is why our customers and clients will prefer a world with us rather than without us." The book is a very good read and uses many powerful real world examples to illustrate her points.