Good Strategy Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and
provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real
world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good
strategy is a specific and coherent response to-and approach for-overcoming the obstacles to
progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the
greatest effect. Yet Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to
equate Mom-and-apple-pie values fluffy packages of buzzwords motivational slogans and
financial goals with "strategy." In Good Strategy Bad Strategy he debunks these elements of
"bad strategy" and awakens an understanding of the power of a "good strategy." He introduces
nine sources of power-ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth-that are
eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning and uses
fascinating examples from business nonprofit and military affairs to bring its original and
pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors from the two
Iraq wars to Afghanistan from a small local market to Wal-Mart from Nvidia to Silicon
Graphics from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District from Cisco Systems
to Paccar and from Global Crossing to the 2007-08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing
grasp and integration of economics finance technology history and the brilliance and
foibles of the human character Good Strategy Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt's decades of
digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.
