Which is your favourite book on STRATEGY?
Here are my favourite books on strategy:
The Art of War – Sun Tsu
James Clavell
This book offers an overarching vision of strategy and implementation that is still highly appropriate in the chaotic times we face. The importance of visionary zeal found in the Confucian concept of “oneness" grips the ‘human spirit’ and passion so necessary for successful change critical to strategy execution.
Passion for Excellence
Tom Peters
This book is far superior to the previous In Search of Excellence – often referred to as ‘the most successful management book ever written’ as a result of its commercial results. Ironically, the most valuable part of this book is the stories describing the failings of companies that had been held up as stellar examples in the original In Search of Excellence! Of the course, the case study references are no longer current, but the lessons to be learned are still valid.
Hope is Not a Method
Gordon Sullivan
The book chronicles the travails of the 'reinvention' of the US Army following the Vietnam war, and was written by the General who headed up the project. The examples are now dated, but the underlying lessons and the methodological discipline offer much of value.
Switch
Chip and Dan Heath
This book is about change in really difficult situations; and a challenging strategy invariably involves change. In other words, strategy implementation is all about managing change—defining the strategy, selling the need, creating the buy-in, and creating successful outcomes through a systematic and rewarding process. This is a recent effort and is infused with current research into human behaviour. It is also written in non-technical vocabulary rather than the usual ‘policy wonk’ jargon.
In the end, there is no ONE best way. The right strategy at any particular juncture is really dependent upon the situation, the context and the resources available.
So, you’ve seen my list - what is the best book on strategy that you have read?
Favorite books on commercial strategy would be two recent ones:
- Good Strategy, Bad Strategy and Why it Matters, by Richard Rumelt. He writes from decades of consulting experience to drive home the key tenets of any strategy (diagnosis, guiding policy, coherent action). The case studies are excellent but the best part is how he steers clear of buzzwords, demonstrates critical thinking, and distils great detail to simple lessons
- The Lords of Strategy by Walter Kiechel. As the sub-title says, it’s an intellectual history of the consulting industry and how the ideas of commercial strategy gradually emerged in just the past few decades. Most interesting is how devoid of ideas the field seems to have been in the 50s and 60s.
By Andrew Scheidl on 2011/08/05
Thanks Andy for the great additions!
Yes the 50s and 60s were rather devoted to operational planning after all this was the hay days of the conglomerates and the Harry Geneens.
By Alcide DeGagné on 2011/08/09