Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

54. Strategy as Revolution

Concept

Well-known strategic theory author Gary Hamel has written a number of books on strategic thinking. One focused on the concept of strategy as revolution—breaking the past and redesigning the future in revolutionary ways.¹³ Revolution, of course, requires dramatic changes in thinking, planning, and executing. Hamel offered 10 rules to help people develop more revolutionary thinking.¹⁴

1. Set unreasonable expectations. The idea here is that creating seemingly impossible goals and demands will cause/force people to approach issues in dramatically new ways. The same idea appeared in Jim Collins’s big hairy audacious goals or BHAGs.¹⁵ Those who followed Collins’s advice often found that BHAGs didn’t work. Collins ...