Why your Strategy Sucks

A look into your business or where you do business will give you some insight into whether the organization is working with a clear strategy or not. It all boils down to how you are able to work productively with your team.

Why Your Strategy Sucks is a book that not only goes through the history of how strategy shaped man but also how it has evolved over time. It also gives you the clarity of how you can identify the best strategy, make informed decisions and stay on your choice course.

Key Takeaways:

 

‘Human Resistance’ is the number one reason why your strategy fails
Strategy is about making complex choices where the stakes are high
Strategy is not just about the world of business, but about every aspect of your life
Strategy is becoming more complex in an increasingly VUCA world
Strategy is not flawless, with numerous ethical lapses over the past few decades
The future of strategy is to be a jack of all trades, and to craft human-led stories in an AI-driven world
Everyone needs to think strategically - strategy will be a high source of value in the future.
Good strategy is about excellent execution. Bad strategy is about fancy slides.
Metrics can be financial, metrics can also be process-led
In strategy, you need framework that’s MECE - mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive
The future consumer, especially the Generation Z, will demand:

Content to stay engaged with you
To be a part of a community
That you will be accessible across any channel
The right consumption moment

Why is consumption going to be important? According to the research by The Economist, nearly 72% of a country’s gross GDP across the world is driven by consumption
The golden triangle principle to tap into the indian or emerging market consumer is Price, Distribution and Value
Omni-channel strategy is necessary for your company especially if you are in the retail or consumer-centric industry
The 5 big themes of the future:

May AI be with you
Your health is your first priority
You will keep spending more and more
The big rise of digital world
Creating as sustainable future

Execution is extremely important when it comes to strategy
A majority of strategy programs fail because they cannot address why the human at the centre should change
The COM-B framework is very helpful for understanding how and why humans change - and for designing a suitable execution plan
Another useful tool is the stakeholder prioritization map, especially since your time and energy to engage with senior leaders is limited
Process redesign is one of the most important strategy problems you will solve- especially in this digital age
The key is to map existing processes correctly and and capture both qualitative user input and quantitative pain points
Benchmarking across processes in other industries is the key to identifying a wide range of potential solutions
You can’t implement every solution so you need to prioritize
If done rigorously and correctly, you can drive efficiencies with a 75 to 80% reduction in time or cost
The biggest pain point for strategy professionals is when their leaders focus on things that don’t matter
Communicate with a big C
Manage people the way you want to be managed
Get a sponsor
Dress and behave like you belong
Use common sense!

 

Putting all these together, this book is an insightful one to ponder and think about. Many figures and diagrams are provided to understand the route to building the strategy process completely.

 

Book Blurb:

 

A business strategy consists of certain guiding principles that helps an organization make quick and accurate decisions. Since an organization is nothing without its people, strategy is essentially human centric. It is about how people in an organization should make decisions and allocate resources to attain critical objectives. A robust strategy offers a clear roadmap with guiding principles defining the actions individuals in an organization should take (and not take). It also provides insights into the things one should prioritize (and not prioritize) to accomplish desired goals.

This book highlights strategy techniques that can help you navigate both your personal and professional conundrums. It tries to showcase how strategy consultants think through frameworks, examples and tools, to help young professionals improve their chances at professional success. Conceived as a definitive guide to achieving both personal and professional success, Why Your Strategy Sucks will unleash your true potential to win at work and in life.

 

About the Author:

 

Sandeep Das has been a corporate leader for nearly 15 years, having worked as Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Accenture Strategy, Marico and BCG. He is currently the Global Foresight Lead for Emerging Countries for Mars Wrigley.

He is the author of Hacks for Life and Career: A Millennial’s Guide to Making It Big, Yours Sarcastically and Satan’s Angels. His books have been featured in Fortune, the Times of India, the Economic Times, Mint, Deccan Chronicle, Business Line, The Asian Age, CNN IBN, The Hindu, Bangalore Mirror and Mid-Day.

He is a popular columnist with Fortune, Forbes, the Times of India, the Economic Times, Mint and Businessworld, having written over 200 columns for them. He has been quoted extensively by Fortune, Mint, Moneycontrol, Deccan Chronicle, the Financial Express, and so on.

He has been invited as a guest speaker at more than 100 leading corporates and institutes. He has spoken at corporates such as the Tata Group, Indian Oil, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bajaj Electricals, upGrad, Deloitte, Accenture and PwC. Some of the institutes Sandeep has spoken at are the National University of Singapore (NUS), IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and St Stephen’s Delhi.

His videos on YouTube have been seen over a million times. His posts on LinkedIn have been seen over 10 million times.

By education, he is an MBA from IIM Bangalore and has completed a strategy course from INSEAD.

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