Real-Time Strategy

In today's highly dynamic and unpredictable global economy traditional strategic planning — characterized by a centralized plan-and-control management approach — has lost its edge. Managers must respond more quickly than ever to dynamic conditions and utilize the full potential of all people in an organization.Strategic planning is too slow and inflexible to enable managers to respond to rapid change and too hierarchical to bring a wider range of employees into the decision-making process.

Real-Time Strategy provides a compelling new alternative to strategic planning for the '90s and beyond — strategic improvising. This innovative concept puts strategic responsibility and strategic tools in the hands of small, self-directed teams that move together ina common strategic direction. Strategic improvising is faster and less risky and provides a more flexible response in an uncertain environment while empowering individuals throughout the organization.

Written by three leading authorities on strategic management, whose consulting experiences with major corporations are included as case studies, Real-Time Strategy demonstrates how the team-based approach:

• Builds a greater sense of accountability throughout the organization
• Promotes creativity by allowing individuals to build on each others' ideas
• Keeps team members open to the flow of crucial real-time information
• Fosters effective lateral communication throughout the organization
• Facilitates the rapid shifting of roles to meet changing strategic objectives

Real-Time Strategy specifies the tools that help an organization develop a team-based strategic capability. The authors have site-tested these tools in over 50 businesses. They show how to incorporate new, real-time information technologies into a company's strategic thinking and outline the steps managers must take to make the necessary move from strategic planning to strategic improvising.

Organizations that survive and prosper in the '90s and beyond will be those whose strategic outlook conforms to the realities of a complex, dynamic, and uncertain gloabl economy. Real-Time Strategy is the first book to arm managers with the tools to make that crucial adjustment.

1. Pickup: an Introduction to Strategic Improvising
• Team-Based Strategic Thinking
• High Frequency Strategies
• Real-Time Strategies
• Jazz Groups and Symphony Orchestras
• Strategic Improvising: Not an Oxymoron
2. A Cuttin' Contest: Strategic Planning versus Strategic Improvising
• A Basic Case against Strategic Planning
• A Case for Strategic Improvising
• Strategic Improvising and the New World Economic Order
• Strategic Improvising and Empowering Organizations
• Strategic Improvising and Nonroutine Work
• Two Models
3. Getting into a Bag: How to clarify Strategic Direction and Strategic Objectives
• Achieving Strategy Clarification
• Step 1: Determining Current Strategic Direction
• Step 2: Identifying Specific Strategic Options
• Step 3: Selecting One Strategic Option
• Step 4: Specifying a Strategic Direction
• Step 5: Translating Strategic Direction into a Business Concept
• Step 6: Identifying Specific Strategic Objectives
• Why You Can't Be Everything to Everybody
4. The Front Line: Core Capabilities, Support Capabilities, and the Unit of Competitive Advantage
• The Unit of Competitive Advantage
• How the UCA Affects the Design and Management of Organizations
• Managing Capabilities Outside the UCA
• Core Capabilities and Value-Added Support Capabilities
• Aligning the UCA
5. In the Groove: Aligning Organizations to Conserve Human Energy
• Conserving Human Energy through Strategic Alignment
• Identifying Misalignments
• Strategic Alignment Tools
• External Strategic Alignment
6. Help to the Jive: The Outer Game of Strategic Improvising
• The Outer Game of Strategic Improvising
• Finding Business Opportunities
• Creating Business Opportunities
• Detecting Background Noise
• Corporate Social Responsibilities
• The Final Component
7. Ain't Misbehavin': Real-Time Measurement and Information Systems
• A Revised System Design
• A Typology of Real-Time Measures
• Perception, Politics, Presentation, and Factors of Safety
8. Solid Sender: A Launching Platform for Strategic Improvising
• A Variation on the Same Theme
• Pouring a New Foundation for Strategic Improvising
• From a Three-Legged to a Four-Legged Platform
9. The Hot Seven: Preparing Individuals for Moving from Strategic Planning to Strategic Improvising
• Going toward Anxiety
• Aspiring Higher
• Keeping the Eyes on the Ball
• Leveraging through Others
• Accepting Dynamic Imbalances
• Laughing at Oneself and with Others
• Keeping the Faith
• Get Out of the Way
10. Ride-Out: Final Comments about a Continuing Process
• A Divisive Debate
• Wanted: New Ways to educate Strategists
• Driving Offensive Strategies
• Sempre Avanti: Forever Forward

It gets boring with all books that tries to tell you that all strategies need to be dynamic and execute in real-time.