Strategic: The Skill to Set Direction, Create Advantage, and Achieve Executive Excellence 1st Edition

WHO I AMI AM AN OPERATOR, CO-FOUNDER, AND PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTOR. I read 10+ books annually, focusing on leadership and business. Initially, I was skeptical based on the cover, thinking I didn't need more strategic education. But after flipping through a few pages, I was captivated. I read the book twice, summarized it, and plan to share it with friends.THE CONTEXT - THIS BOOK AMONG OTHER BUSINESS BOOKSTHIS BOOK IS THE PERFECT COMPANION TO MICHAEL PORTER'S CLASSIC "WHAT IS STRATEGY?" IN HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW. While Porter explained the "what," applying his concepts can be challenging. RICH'S BOOK BUILDS A FRAMEWORK TO EXPAND ON STRATEGY AND OFFERS A PRAGMATIC "HOW" FOR REAL BUSINESSES. His framework and examples act as a compass for assessing current status and progress toward excellence. This book aligns well with Jim Collins' Good to Great, Anders Ericsson's Peak, Verne Harnish's Scaling Up, and William Thorndike's The Outsiders while offering unique insights not found elsewhere.WHO I RECOMMEND THIS TOIf you think your team is "TOO TACTICAL" AND "NOT STRATEGIC ENOUGH," THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU. I recommend it to SMALL- AND MID-SIZED BUSINESS OWNERS AND EXECUTIVES who aspire to elevate their companies from good to great. The frameworks help assess, align, and uplevel leadership, organization, and communication to be more strategic and effective. Examples and data are plentiful to help secure team buy-in.WHY I RECOMMEND IT• PATTERN RECOGNITION AND ACTIONABLE: The issues and fallacies highlighted in the book are likely to resonate, and Rich provides a clear direction and framework to initiate change.• TONS OF REFERENCES FOR SECURING BUY-INS: Rich includes an abundance of data and references, even more than Scaling Up by Verne Harnish. His clear purpose is to help you convincingly convey your ideas. An experienced executive coach, Rich excels at communication, and his thorough research saves time by consolidating valuable insights across sources.• CONCEPTS EXPLAINED CLEARLY: Despite attending business school, I still found myself confused by concepts like Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics. Rich explains these concepts clearly and brilliantly through relatable examples and categorization, leveraging his experience as a business school instructor and executive coach.• CRITERIA FOR STRATEGIC VS. NON-STRATEGIC: The book provides a framework to evaluate strategic acumen: Do you understand the context of the company, customer, competition, and trends to generate insights and create value? Can you allocate and plan to focus resources through strategic trade-offs and decision-making? Can you act by prioritizing and executing initiatives? These criteria help identify and quantify strategic leaders versus tactical ones.• PATH FROM TACTICAL TO STRATEGIC: Rich offers a framework to help a team of doers become more strategic by discovering insights, synthesizing them through strategic thinking, and translating those insights into an actionable plan. The process involves strategically rolling out the idea and refining it over time—simple yet effective.• HUMAN BIASES, FALLACIES, AND BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY IN MIND: The author acknowledges human resistance to change and biases like decision-making by consensus, underestimating competitors, or failing to terminate unsuccessful initiatives. He leverages research to explain why saying "no" and strategic change benefits both companies and individuals. His approach helps align executive teams to break away from default (e.g. consensus-driven decisions), ultimately elevating the entire firm strategically.WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED (FOR FUTURE EDITIONS)• TOO MANY REFERENCES: Some references can feel excessive or not academically proven, such as the idea that "working experience is the fifth-best predictor of job success."• MORE DEPTH IN ORGANIZATIONAL FOUNDATION: This concept is addressed at a high level, but practical examples of org design/reorg and their impact on strategy would be valuable.IN SUMMARYI recommend this book to leaders seeking to become more strategic and impactful. It's perfect for small- and mid-sized business leaders and executive teams to align on how we can be more strategic and grow to make a bigger impact.

Strategic is both the most comprehensive and the most practical in a detailed way book on strategy that I’ve ever read. I recommend it very highly to anyone who has the responsibility to develop and guide a strategy for a group or an organization.In terms of comprehensiveness, the book uses a very broad framework that the author, Rich Horwath, calls Strategic Fitness: Strategy Fitness, Leadership Fitness, Organization Fitness, and Communication Fitness. He then dedicates four chapters to each of those four areas of Strategic Fitness. In this way he is able to do a deep dive into each area while explaining the connection between the four areas. I found this approach to be very helpful in keeping top of mind the broad concepts in the book.In terms of practical in a detailed way, this book provides a very wide array of tools, tips, quotes, examples, and definitions. Here are a few samples of what I mean:Tool: Your Strategic Quotient (SQ): Acumen (Thinking), Allocation (Planning), and Acumen (Acting)Tool: GOST Framwork (Goal, Objective, Strategy, Tactic)Tips: Throughout the book there are a few dozen very short tips called Rocket Burns and Trail BlazesQuotes: I’ve never read a book that had so many well-placed, relevant, and powerful quotes. Here is an example. On page 108 the author wrote, “Why would we want to prevent failure when a lot of people are advocating for it? Because ‘failing fast’ as a consistent route to success is a myth.” Then he included these two quotes: “My goal is not to fail fast. My goal is to succeed over the long run. They are not the same thing.” – Marc Andreesen, co-founder of Netscape. And this quote, “What is the worst advice you see or hear given in your trade? Fail fast.” – Jack Dorsey, self-made billionaire, CEO of Square and former CEO of TwitterExamples – The author makes this point: “Strategy demands trade-offs – choosing your ‘nots.’ What products will we not offer? What customers will we choose not to serve.” Then he brings in the example of Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.Definitions.This is my favorite part of the book. Horwath consistently takes words that can be very confusing, and he makes them understandable. This makes it much, much easier to apply the ideas in our work and our personal lives.For example, he wrote, “Strategic thinking is the ability to generate insights that lead to advantage.” Wow, that simplified what I’ve read in more than a dozen books on strategy into something that people can take to heart and move into action. Study a topic or an industry in detail, and then look for ways to turn those insights into real advantage for your group or organization.WARNING: Here’s my one warning on this book. Don’t give this book as a quick-read to your staff the night before your Annual Strategic Planning Two-Day Retreat. This book has way too much valuable content for you to sprint through it. Instead, give this book to your staff a month before the Strategy Meeting, and encourage everyone to read one chapter a day and let the ideas sink in. In this way, each person will be vastly better prepared to have an in-depth conversation on strategy.