Strategy and the Fat Smoker

We often (or even usually) know what we should be doing in both personal and professional life. We also know why we should be doing it and (often) how to do it. Figuring all that out is not too difficult. What is very hard is actually doing what you know to be good for you in the long-run, in spite of short-run temptations.

The same is true for organizations. What is noteworthy is how similar (if not identical) most firms’ strategies really are: provide outstanding client service, act like team players, provide a good place to work, invest in your future. No sensible firm (or person) would enunciate a strategy that advocated anything else.

However, just because something is obvious doesn’t make it easy. Real strategy lies not in figuring out what to do, but in devising ways to ensure that, compared to others, we actually do more of what everybody knows they should do.

This simple insight, if accepted, has profound implications for:

• how organizations should think about strategy
• how they should think about clients, marketing and selling and
• how they should think about management

• Part One: Strategy
1. Strategy and the Fat Smoker
2. Strategy Means Saying "No"
3. It’s Not How Good You Are; It’s How Much You Want It
4. Are We In This Together? The Preconditions for Strategy
5. What’s Our Deal?
• Part Two: Client Relationships
6. Do You Really Want Relationships?
7. The Friendship Strategy
8. Doing It for the Money
• Part Three: Management
9. Tyrants, Energizers, and Cynics
10. Why (Most) Training Is Useless
11. A Great Coach In Action
12. A Natural Manager
13. Accountability: Effective Managers Go First
14. Selecting a Leader: Do We Know What We Want?
• Part Four: Putting It Together
15. The One-Firm Firm Revisited
16. Managing the Multidimensional Organization
17. The Trouble With Lawyers
18. The Chief Executive’s Speech
19. Passion, People, and Principles

Potentially the best management book in 2008!

At long last an author that competes with Pfeffer and Sutton on their own turf. Cynical, realistic, truth-saying, no-nonsense talking, the author makes a compelling case for his ideas and theories, that I am totally willing to buy into (some Americanisms has crept in, but it is easy to disregard them).

This is a book you may read in one sitting, but you can always get back to it and read individual chapters and get more knowledge and ideas all the time. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this book is something you should go back to from time to time, and just check out, to see if you get any new insights.

Highly recommended! In fact, any manager (regardless of level) would benefit from reading this.