1st Edition
Strategy Discovery Achieving Business Resilience, Engagement and Performance
Personal, useful, actionable and grounded in research, this book will shift your thinking from "strategy development" to "strategy discovery" to enable you to deal with today’s business challenges, engage your staff and boost your business performance.
Management teams and boards are facing disruption on all sides, from morphing customer preferences to the COVID pandemic to climate change. At the same time they are floundering in strategy confusion with too many concepts and not enough clarity. In this book, strategy expert and regular Harvard Business Review author Graham Kenny releases managers and directors from their strategy haze. His simple and effective framework allows managers to navigate the current maze of ideas and approaches and maximize their competitive advantage. Kenny’s readable style is equally effective: each chapter begins with an engaging story, then builds on this with cases, client examples, sidebars and more, ending with a series of action points to provide a pathway to success.
CEOs, senior-level and middle managers across all functions and sectors, including private, public and not-for-profit organizations, who discuss and set strategy for their organization or business unit will appreciate the articulated framework, illustrative anecdotes and positive encouragement this book offers.
1 Strategic Factors: Discover the Ingredients of Success; 2 Stakeholders: Unearth Latent Dependencies; 3 Business Models: Reveal Hidden Business Design; 4 Objectives: Expose Stakeholders in Objectives; 5 Competitive Advantage: Divulge Strategy’s Dirty Secret; 6 Stakeholder Perspective: Admit Stakeholders Know Strategies; 7 Implementation: Disclose Implementation’s Components; 8 Strategy Pitfalls: Unveil Strategy’s Inner Logic; 9 Strategy Hacks: Effective Tools for Defining Strategy; 10 Strategy’s Code: Put the Pieces Together
Biography
Graham Kenny is an internationally recognized expert in strategy and performance measurement. He writes regularly for the Harvard Business Review, has written more than 70 articles for international academic journals and has authored five books. He is passionate about helping boards, executives and managers lead successful organizations in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. He has been a professor of management in universities in the US and Canada.
“The book is a practical and engaging guide on how to design and implement your organization’s business strategy. It is full of substance and written in a language and style that practicing managers will find appealing and useful. I strongly recommend it.”
Professor Constantinos Markides, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School
“Kenny has done it again. Using the same clarity of analysis and highly readable style that were the hallmark of his previous books, he helps the reader make sense of that most fundamental yet too often misunderstood and misused concept – strategy. If you teach or practice strategy, you should read this book.”
Professor Royston Greenwood, Professor of Strategic Management, School of Business, University of Alberta
“The book presents an innovative yet extremely effective and logical approach to business strategy. I have no hesitation in recommending it to any organization trying to maximize its competitive advantage.”
John Tannock, Chairman, Natures Fruit Company
“One major problem for the business clients we work with is confusing operations with strategy. This outstanding new book by Dr. Kenny offers the way out through his brilliant strategy framework designed around stakeholders. Simple to understand yet logically robust, this book shows how to successfully implement his ideas. Each chapter is a playbook that drives home its main points through case studies, real-world examples, and checklists.”
Professor Tom Elmer, Professor of Marketing, West Chester University
“This book made me think and rethink my approach to discovering strategy. It is a compelling yet easy and digestible read. It is a must-read for every leader and manager responsible for their organisation's successful future.”
Allan Ryan, Founder, Hargraves Institute
“Graham Kenny is one of the few who know what strategy is and how to make it work for you, with clear expression of what, when and how, so you can get to work straight away. If you are seeking to understand and implement anything connected with strategy, then this book is for you!”
Mark Wiggins, CEO, Hall Payne Lawyers
“The way Graham articulates the concept of Strategy Discovery is a unique guide for all boards and executives to start getting familiar and using modern strategy principles. The various examples provided are directly helpful in navigating through the current pace of market change. I highly recommend it”.
Andrew Bird, Director, Foundstone Advisory
