CHAPTER 4

Rapid-Fire Strategy

Strategy Ain’t What It Used to Be

At the end of a particularly long and grueling strategy meeting with the executive team of a major consumer services business, Alan, the chief executive officer, turned to me and said, “Living quarter by quarter is madness, but in a few years’ time people will laugh at us for developing three-year plans.” He was right. With the pace of business change today, driven by technology and globalization, long-term plans last about as long as an ice storm in the desert. As military experts put it, plans rarely survive contact with the enemy.

Despite these new realities, many executive teams remain stuck with 20th-century approaches to strategy development. It is still common for companies ...

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