Change

Chapter 3“Strategic Planning” That Delivers Results

No single innovation in the past half century has done more to help organizations and their employees pay attention to complex changes going on around them, and then to adapt intelligently and grow prosperously, than strategy formulation and execution—typically called “strategic planning.”

In his seminal history of the whole concept of strategy, Walter Kiechel quotes a BCG consultant circa 1970 as saying “strategy is change.” That is, the successful creation and execution of a new strategy inevitably brings changes to a firm, and sometimes an industry—changes that could put an enterprise in a much stronger competitive position relative to others. So, as BCG's founder, Bruce Henderson, would have said, if you believe continuing to operate as you always have is good enough, or you are only willing to make small adjustments, forget thinking about strategy, because a successful strategy exercise almost inevitably leads to change, sometimes significant change.

Back then, this idea was as original as was the whole concept of applying the term “strategy” to the business world, which was what Henderson did, even before Professor Michael Porter launched the idea in academia. Before that, for centuries, “strategy” was used almost exclusively in the military. By the 1960s, a combination of factors was beginning to produce more competition worldwide, especially for leading organizations in the United States. And strategy—an idea that ...