www.hbr.orgCan You Say What Your Strategy Isby .docx

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Can You Say What
Your Strategy Is?
by David J. Collis and Michael G. Rukstad
It’s a dirty little secret: Most
executives cannot articulate
the objective, scope, and
advantage of their business in
a simple statement. If they
can’t, neither can anyone else.
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Can You Say What

Your Strategy Is?
by David J. Collis and Michael G. Rukstad
harvard business review • april 2008 page 1
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It’s a dirty little secret: Most executives cannot articulate the
objective,
scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement. If
they
can’t, neither can anyone else.

Can you summarize your company’s strategy
in 35 words or less? If so, would your col-
leagues put it the same way?
It is our experience that very few executives
can honestly answer these simple questions in
the affirmative. And the companies that those
executives work for are often the most
successful in their industry. One is Edward
Jones, a St. Louis–based brokerage firm with
which one of us has been involved for more
than 10 years. The fourth-largest brokerage in
the United States, Jones has quadrupled its
market share during the past two decades, has
consistently outperformed its rivals in terms
of ROI through bull and bear markets, and
has been a fixture on Fortune’s list of the top
companies to work for. It’s a safe bet that
just about every one of its 37,000 employees
could express the company’s succinct strategy
statement: Jones aims to “grow to 17,000 fi-
nancial advisers by 2012 [from about 10,000
today] by offering trusted and convenient
face-to-face financial advice to conservative
individual investors who delegate their finan-
cial decisions, through a national network of
one-financial-adviser offices.”
Conversely, companies that don’t have a
simple and clear statement of strategy are
likely to fall into the sorry category of those
that have failed to execute their strategy or,
worse, those that never even had one. In an

astonishing number of organizations, execu-
tives, frontline employees, and all those in
between are frustrated because no clear
strategy exists for the company or its lines
of business. The kinds of complaints that
abound in such firms include:
• “I try for months to get an initiative off
the ground, and then it is shut down because
‘it doesn’t fit the strategy.’ Why didn’t anyone
tell me that at the beginning?”
• “I don’t know whether I should be pursu-
ing this market opportunity. I get mixed sig-
nals from the powers that be.”
• “Why are we bidding on this customer’s
business again? We lost it last year, and I
thought we agreed then not to waste our time
chasing the contract!”
March
2019.
Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?

• “Should I cut the price for this customer?
I don’t know if we would be better off win-
ning the deal at a lower price or just losing
the business.”
Leaders of firms are mystified when what
they thought was a beautifully crafted strategy
is never implemented. They assume that
the initiatives described in the voluminous
documentation that emerges from an annual
budget or a strategic-planning process will
ensure competitive success. They fail to ap-
preciate the necessity of having a simple,
clear, succinct strategy statement that every-
one can internalize and use as a guiding light
for making difficult choices.
Think of a major business as a mound of
10,000 iron filings, each one representing an
employee. If you scoop up that many filings
and drop them onto a piece of paper, they’ll
be pointing in every direction. It will be a big
mess: 10,000 smart people working hard and
making what they think are the right deci-
sions for the company—but with the net
result of confusion. Engineers in the R&D
department are creating a product with “must
have” features for which (as the marketing
group could have told them) customers will
not pay; the sales force is selling customers on
quick turnaround times and customized offer-
ings even though the manufacturing group
has just invested in equipment designed for
long production runs; and so on.
If you pass a magnet over those filings,

what happens? They line up. Similarly, a
well-understood statement of strategy aligns
behavior within the business. It allows ev-
eryone in the organization to make individual
choices that reinforce one another, render-
ing those 10,000 employees exponentially
more effective.
What goes into a good statement of strat-
egy? Michael Porter’s seminal article “What Is
Strategy?” (HBR November–December 1996)
lays out the characteristics of strategy in a
conceptual fashion, conveying the essence of
strategic choices and distinguishing them
from the relentless but competitively fruitless
search for operational efficiency. However, we
have found in our work both with executives
and with students that Porter’s article does
not answer the more basic question of how to
describe a particular firm’s strategy.
It is a dirty little secret that most executives
don’t actually know what all the elements of
a strategy statement are, which makes it
impossible for them to develop one. With a
clear definition, though, two things happen:
First, formulation becomes infinitely easier
because executives know what they are trying
to create. Second, implementation becomes
much simpler because the strategy’s essence
can be readily communicated and easily inter-
nalized by everyone in the organization.
Elements of a Strategy Statement

The late Mike Rukstad, who contributed enor-
mously to this article, identified three critical
components of a good strategy statement—
objective, scope, and advantage—and rightly
believed that executives should be forced to
be crystal clear about them. These elements
are a simple yet sufficient list for any strategy
(whether business or military) that addresses
competitive interaction over unbounded terrain.
Any strategy statement must begin with a
definition of the ends that the strategy is de-
signed to achieve. “If you don’t know where
you are going, any road will get you there” is
the appropriate maxim here. If a nation has
an unclear sense of what it seeks to achieve
from a military campaign, how can it have a
hope of attaining its goal? The definition of
the objective should include not only an end
point but also a time frame for reaching it. A
strategy to get U.S. troops out of Iraq at some
distant point in the future would be very dif-
ferent from a strategy to bring them home
within two years.
Since most firms compete in a more or less
unbounded landscape, it is also crucial to
define the scope, or domain, of the business:
the part of the landscape in which the firm
will operate. What are the boundaries beyond
which it will not venture? If you are planning
to enter the restaurant business, will you
provide sit-down or quick service? A casual or
an upscale atmosphere? What type of food

will you offer—French or Mexican? What geo-
graphic area will you serve—the Midwest or
the East Coast?
Alone, these two aspects of strategy are
insufficient. You could go into business tomor-
row with the goal of becoming the world’s
largest hamburger chain within 10 years. But
will anyone invest in your company if you
have not explained how you are going to
reach your objective? Your competitive ad-
vantage is the essence of your strategy: What
David J. Collis
([email protected]) is an
adjunct professor in the strategy unit
of Harvard Business School in Boston
and the author of several books on
corporate strategy. He has studied and
consulted to Edward Jones, the broker-
age that is the main example in this
article, and has taught in the firm’s
management-development program.
Michael G. Rukstad was a senior
research fellow at Harvard Business
School, where he taught for many
years until his untimely death in 2006.
March
2019.

mailto:[email protected]
your business will do differently from or better
than others defines the all-important means by
which you will achieve your stated objective.
That advantage has complementary external
and internal components: a value proposition
that explains why the targeted customer
should buy your product above all the alter-
natives, and a description of how internal ac-
tivities must be aligned so that only your firm
can deliver that value proposition.
Defining the objective, scope, and advantage
requires trade-offs, which Porter identified as
fundamental to strategy. If a firm chooses to
pursue growth or size, it must accept that
profitability will take a back seat. If it chooses
to serve institutional clients, it may ignore
retail customers. If the value proposition is
lower prices, the company will not be able
to compete on, for example, fashion or fit.
Finally, if the advantage comes from scale
economies, the firm will not be able to accom-
modate idiosyncratic customer needs. Such
trade-offs are what distinguish individual
companies strategically.

Defining the Objective
The first element of a strategy statement is
the one that most companies have in some
form or other. Unfortunately, the form is
usually wrong. Companies tend to confuse
their statement of values or their mission with
their strategic objective. A strategic objective
is not, for example, the platitude of “maximiz-
ing shareholder wealth by exceeding customer
expectations for _______ [insert product or
service here] and providing opportunities for
our employees to lead fulfilling lives while
respecting the environment and the commu-
nities in which we operate.” Rather, it is the
single precise objective that will drive the
business over the next five years or so. (See
the exhibit “A Hierarchy of Company State-
ments.”) Many companies do have—and all
firms should have—statements of their ultimate
purpose and the ethical values under which
they will operate, but neither of these is the
strategic objective.
The mission statement spells out the under-
lying motivation for being in business in
the first place—the contribution to society
that the firm aspires to make. (An insurance
company, for example, might define its
mission as providing financial security to
consumers.) Such statements, however, are
not useful as strategic goals to drive today’s

business decisions. Similarly, it is good and
proper that firms be clear with employees
about ethical values. But principles such as
respecting individual differences and sustain-
ing the environment are not strategic. They
govern how employees should behave (“doing
things right”); they do not guide what the
firm should do (“the right thing to do”).
Firms in the same business often have the
same mission. (Don’t all insurance companies
aspire to provide financial security to their
customers?) They may also have the same
values. They might even share a vision: an
indeterminate future goal such as being the
“recognized leader in the insurance field.”
However, it is unlikely that even two compa-
nies in the same business will have the same
strategic objective. Indeed, if your firm’s strat-
egy can be applied to any other firm, you
don’t have a very good one.
It is always easy to claim that maximizing
shareholder value is the company’s objective.
In some sense all strategies are designed to
do this. However, the question to ask when
creating an actionable strategic statement is,
Which objective is most likely to maximize
shareholder value over the next several years?
A Hierarchy of Company Statements
Organizational direction comes in several forms. The mission
statement is your

loftiest guiding light—and your least specific. As you work
your way down the
hierarchy, the statements become more concrete, practical, and
ultimately
unique. No other company will have the same strategy
statement, which defines
your competitive advantage, or balanced scorecard, which
tracks how you imple-
ment your particular strategy.
MISSION
Why we exist
VALUES
What we believe in
and how we will behave
VISION
What we want to be
STRATEGY
What our competitive
game plan will be
BALANCED
SCORECARD
How we will monitor
and implement that plan
The BASIC
ELEMENTS
of a Strategy
Statement
OBJECTIVE = Ends

SCOPE = Domain
ADVANTAGE = Means
March
2019.
(Growth? Achieving a certain market share?
Becoming the market leader?) The strategic
objective should be specific, measurable, and
time bound. It should also be a single goal.
It is not sufficient to say, “We seek to grow
profitably.” Which matters more—growth or
profitability? A salesperson needs to know the
answer when she’s deciding how aggressive
to be on price. There could well be a host of
subordinate goals that follow from the strategic
objective, and these might serve as metrics on
a balanced scorecard that monitors progress
for which individuals will be held account-
able. Yet the ultimate objective that will drive
the operation of the business over the next
several years should always be clear.

The choice of objective has a profound
impact on a firm. When Boeing shifted its
primary goal from being the largest player
in the aircraft industry to being the most prof-
itable, it had to restructure the entire organi-
zation, from sales to manufacturing. For
example, the company dropped its policy of
competing with Airbus to the last cent on
every deal and abandoned its commitment
to maintain a manufacturing capacity that
could deliver more than half a peak year’s
demand for planes.
Another company, after years of seeking to
maximize profits at the expense of growth,
issued a corporate mandate to generate at
least 10% organic growth per year. The
change in strategy forced the firm to switch its
focus from shrinking to serve only its profit-
able core customers and competing on the
basis of cost or efficiency to differentiating
its products, which led to a host of new prod-
uct features and services that appealed to a
wider set of customers.
At Edward Jones, discussion among the
partners about the firm’s objective ignited a
passionate exchange. One said, “Our ultimate
objective has to be maximizing profit per
partner.” Another responded, “Not all finan-
cial advisers are partners—so if we maximize
revenue per partner, we are ignoring the
other 30,000-plus people who make the
business work!” Another added, “Our ultimate
customer is the client. We cannot just worry
about partner profits. In fact, we should start

by maximizing value for the customer and
let the profits flow to us from there!” And so
on. This intense debate not only drove align-
ment with the objective of healthy growth
in the number of financial advisers but also
ensured that every implication of that choice
was fully explored. Setting an ambitious
growth target at each point in its 85-year
history, Edward Jones has continually increased
its scale and market presence. Striving to
achieve such growth has increased long-term
profit per adviser and led the firm to its unique
configuration: Its only profit center is the
individual financial adviser. Other activities,
even investment banking, serve as support
functions and are not held accountable for
generating profit.
Defining the Scope
A firm’s scope encompasses three dimensions:
customer or offering, geographic location,
and vertical integration. Clearly defined
boundaries in those areas should make it
obvious to managers which activities they
should concentrate on and, more important,
which they should not do.
The three dimensions may vary in rele-
vance. For Edward Jones, the most important
is the customer. The firm is configured to
meet the needs of one very specific type of
client. Unlike just about every other brokerage

in the business, Jones does not define its
archetypal customer by net worth or income.
Nor does it use demographics, profession,
or spending habits. Rather, the definition is
psychographic: The company’s customers are
long-term investors who have a conservative
investment philosophy and are uncomfort-
able making serious financial decisions with-
out the support of a trusted adviser. In the
terminology of the business, Jones targets
the “delegator,” not the “validator” or the
“do-it-yourselfer.”
The scope of an enterprise does not pre-
scribe exactly what should be done within
the specified bounds. In fact, it encourages
experimentation and initiative. But to ensure
that the borders are clear to all employees,
the scope should specify where the firm or
business will not go. That will prevent manag-
ers from spending long hours on projects that
get turned down by higher-ups because they
do not fit the strategy.
For example, clarity about who the cus-
tomer is and who it is not has kept Edward
Jones from pursuing day traders. Even at the
height of the internet bubble, the company
chose not to introduce online trading (it is
March
2019.

still not available to Jones customers). Unlike
the many brokerages that committed hundreds
of millions of dollars and endless executive
hours to debates over whether to introduce
online trading (and if so, how to price and
position it in a way that did not cannibalize
or conflict with traditional offerings), Jones
wasted no money or time on that decision
because it had set clear boundaries.
Similarly, Jones is not vertically integrated
into proprietary mutual funds, so as not to
violate the independence of its financial ad-
visers and undermine clients’ trust. Nor will
the company offer penny stocks, shares from
IPOs, commodities, or options—investment
products that it believes are too risky for the
conservative clients it chooses to serve. And it
does not have metropolitan offices in business
districts, because they would not allow for the
convenient, face-to-face interactions in casual
settings that the firm seeks to provide. Know-
ing not to extend its scope in these directions
has allowed the firm to focus on doing what it
does well and reap the benefits of simplicity,
standardization, and deep experience.

Defining the Advantage
Given that a sustainable competitive advan-
tage is the essence of strategy, it should be
no surprise that advantage is the most critical
aspect of a strategy statement. Clarity about
what makes the firm distinctive is what most
helps employees understand how they can
contribute to successful execution of its strategy.
As mentioned above, the complete defini-
tion of a firm’s competitive advantage consists
of two parts. The first is a statement of the
customer value proposition. Any strategy
statement that cannot explain why customers
should buy your product or service is doomed
to failure. A simple graphic that maps your
value proposition against those of rivals can
be an extremely easy and useful way of identi-
fying what makes yours distinctive. (See the
exhibit “Wal-Mart’s Value Proposition.”)
The second part of the statement of advan-
tage captures the unique activities or the
complex combination of activities allowing
that firm alone to deliver the customer
value proposition. This is where the strategy
statement draws from Porter’s definition of
strategy as making consistent choices about
the configuration of the firm’s activities. It is
also where the activity-system map that Por-
ter describes in “What Is Strategy?” comes
into play.

As the exhibit “Edward Jones’s Activity-
System Map” shows, the brokerage’s value
proposition is to provide convenient, trusted,
personal service and advice. What is most
distinctive about Jones is that it has only one
financial adviser in an office, which allows it
to have more offices (10,000 nationally) than
competitors do. Merrill Lynch has about
15,000 brokers but only 1,000 offices. To make
it easy for its targeted customers to visit at
their convenience—and to provide a relaxed,
Wal-Mart’s Value Proposition
Wal-Mart’s value proposition can be summed up as “everyday
low prices for a broad
range of goods that are always in stock in convenient
geographic locations.” It is
those aspects of the customer experience that the company
overdelivers relative to
competitors. Underperformance on other dimensions, such as
ambience and sales
help, is a strategic choice that generates cost savings, which
fuel the company’s
price advantage.
If the local mom-and-pop hardware store has survived, it also
has a value propo-
sition: convenience, proprietors who have known you for years,
free coffee and
doughnuts on Saturday mornings, and so on.
Sears falls in the middle on many criteria. As a result,

customers lack a lot of com-
pelling reasons to shop there, which goes a long way toward
explaining why the
company is struggling to remain profitable.
Low prices
Selection across
categories
Rural convenience
Reliable prices
In-stock
merchandise
Merchandise quality
Suburban
convenience
Selection within
categories
Sales help
Ambience
Wal-MartSearsMom & pop
stores
Customer
purchase criteria*
poor excellent

Delivery on criteria
Source: Jan Rivkin, Harvard Business School
* in approximate order of
importance to Wal-Mart’s
target customer group
March
2019.
personable, nonthreatening environment—
Jones puts its offices in strip malls and the
retail districts of rural areas and suburbs
rather than high-rise buildings in the central
business districts of big cities. These choices
alone require Jones to differ radically from
other brokerages in the configuration of its
activities. With no branch-office management
providing direction or support, each financial
adviser must be an entrepreneur who delights
in running his or her own operation. Since
such people are an exception in the industry,

Jones has to bring all its own financial advis-
ers in from other industries or backgrounds
and train them, at great expense. Until
2007, when it switched to an internet-based
service, the firm had to have its own satellite
network to provide its widely dispersed offices
with real-time quotes and allow them to
execute trades. Because the company has
10,000 separate offices, its real estate and
communication costs are about 50% higher
than the industry average. However, all those
offices allow the financial advisers who run
them to deliver convenient, trusted, personal
service and advice.
Other successful players in this industry
also have distinctive value propositions
Edward Jones’s Activity-System Map
This map illustrates how activities at the brokerage Edward
Jones connect to deliver competitive advantage. The firm’s
customer value proposi-
tion appears near the center of the map—in the “customer
relationship” bubble—and the supporting activities hang off it.
Only the major
connections are shown.
PRICE
one-time
commission
TARGET

CUSTOMER
individual
conservative
delegates
decisions
BRANCH
SUPPORT
branch-office
assistant
PRODUCT
blue chips
mutual funds
ONE FINANCIAL
ADVISER PER OFFICE
advisers run their own
offices
MARKETING
local mailings
knocking on doors
INVESTMENT
PHILOSOPHY
long-term
buy and hold
BROKER TYPE

entrepreneur
member of
community
HIRE & TRAIN
hire from
outside industry
internally train all
financial advisers
VALUES &
CULTURE
volunteerism
mentoring
OWNERSHIP
partnership,
not public
COMPENSATION
each financial adviser
is a profit center
TECHNOLOGY
satellite (historically)
HEADQUARTERS
St. Louis home office
for all activities
REGIONAL
STRUCTURE
no regional

management
LOCATION
rural
suburban
strip mall
CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP
face-to-face
convenient
trusted financial
adviser
March
2019.
and unique configurations of activities to
support them.

Merrill Lynch.
During the five-year tenure
of former CEO Stan O’Neal, who retired in
October 2007, Merrill Lynch developed an
effective strategy that it called “Total Merrill.”
The company’s value proposition: to provide
for all the financial needs of its high-net-worth
customers—those with liquid financial assets
of more than $250,000—through retirement.
While a lot of brokerages cater to people
with a high net worth, they focus on asset
accumulation before retirement. Merrill’s view
is that as baby boomers age and move from
the relatively simple phase of accumulating
assets to the much more complex, higher-risk
phase of drawing cash from their retirement
accounts, their needs change. During this
stage, they will want to consolidate their finan-
cial assets with a single trusted partner that
can help them figure out how to optimize
income over their remaining years by making
the best decisions on everything from annuities
to payout ratios to long-term-care insurance.
Merrill offers coherent financial plans for
such customers and provides access to a very
wide range of sophisticated products based
on a Monte Carlo simulation of the probabil-
ities of running out of money according to
different annual rates of return on different
categories of assets.

How does Merrill intend to deliver this
value to its chosen customers in a way that’s
unique among large firms? First, it is pushing
brokers—especially new ones—to become
certified financial planners and has raised
internal training requirements to put them
on that road. The certified financial planner
license is more difficult for brokers to obtain
than the standard Series 7 license, because
it requires candidates to have a college degree
and to master nearly 100 integrated financial-
planning topics. Second, Merrill offers all
forms of insurance, annuities, covered calls,
hedge funds, banking services, and so on
(unlike Edward Jones, which offers a much
more limited menu of investment products).
Since several of these products are technically
complex, Merrill needs product specialists
to support the client-facing broker. This
“Team Merrill” organization poses very dif-
ferent HR and compensation issues from
those posed by Edward Jones’s single-adviser
offices. Merrill’s compensation system has
to share income among the team members
and reward referrals.
Wells Fargo. This San Francisco bank
competes in the brokerage business as part
of its tactic to cross-sell services to its retail
banking customers in order to boost profit
per customer. (It aims to sell each customer at
least eight different products.) Wells Fargo’s
objective for its brokerage arm, clearly stated
in a recent annual report, is to triple its share
of customers’ financial assets. The brokerage’s
means for achieving this goal is the parent

company’s database of 23 million customers,
many of them brought into the firm through
one particular aspect of the banking relation-
ship: the mortgage. Wells Fargo differs from
Edward Jones and Merrill Lynch in its aim
to offer personalized, rather than personal,
service. For example, the firm’s IT system al-
lows a bank clerk to know a limited amount
of information about a customer (name, birth-
day, and so on) and appear to be familiar with
him or her, which is quite different from the
ongoing individual relationships that Jones
and Merrill brokers have with their clients.
The Strategic Sweet Spot
The strategic sweet spot of a company is where it meets
customers’ needs in a way
that rivals can’t, given the context in which it competes.
CUSTOMERS’
needs
COMPETITORS’
offerings
COMPANY’S
capabilities
CONTEXT
(technology, industry
demographics, regulation, and so on)

SWEET
SPOT
March
2019.
LPL Financial.
Different again is LPL Finan-
cial, with offices in Boston, San Diego, and
Charlotte, North Carolina. LPL sees its brokers
(all of whom are independent financial advisers
affiliated with the firm) rather than consumers
as its clients and has configured all of its activ-
ities to provide individualized solutions and
the highest payouts to its brokers. This means
that the vast majority of the activities per-
formed by the corporate headquarters staff
are services, such as training, that brokers
choose and pay for on an à la carte basis. As
a result, LPL’s headquarters staff is very small
(0.20 people per broker) compared with that
of Edward Jones (1.45 people per broker).

Low overhead allows LPL to offer a higher
payout to brokers than Jones and Merrill
do, which is its distinctive value proposition
to its chosen customer: the broker.
By now it should be apparent how a careful
description of the unique activities a firm
performs to generate a distinctive customer
value proposition effectively captures its strat-
egy. A relatively simple description in a strategy
statement provides an incisive characteriza-
tion that could not belong to any other firm.
This is the goal. When that statement has
been internalized by all employees, they can
easily understand how their daily activities
contribute to the overall success of the firm
and how to correctly make the difficult choices
they confront in their jobs.
Developing a Strategy Statement
How, then, should a firm go about crafting its
strategy statement? Obviously, the first step is
to create a great strategy, which requires care-
ful evaluation of the industry landscape.
Leaving No Room for Misinterpretation
Executives at Edward Jones have developed a detailed
understanding of every element of the firm’s strategy. Here is
an example.

Edward Jones’s
Strategy Statement
To grow to 17,000 financial advis-
ers by 2012 by offering trusted and
convenient face-to-face financial
advice to conservative individual
investors who delegate their
financial decisions, through a
national network of one-financial-
adviser offices.
”conservative“
Our investment philosophy is long-term buy and hold. We do
not
sell penny stocks, commodities, or other high-risk instruments.
As a result we do not serve day traders and see no need to offer
online trading.
We charge commissions on trades because this is the cheapest
way to buy stocks (compared with a wrap fee, which charges an-
nually as a percentage of assets) when the average length of
time
the investor holds the stock or mutual fund is over 10 years.
”individual“
We do not advise institutions or companies.

We do not segment according to wealth, age, or other demo-
graphics. The company will serve all customers that fit its
conser-
vative investment philosophy. Brokers will call on any and
every
potential customer. Stories abound within Jones of millionaires
who live in trailers — people all the other brokerages would
never
think of approaching.
”investors“
Our basic service is investment. We do not seek to offer
services
such as checking accounts for their own sake, but only as part
of
the management of a client’s assets.
”who delegate their financial decisions“
We do not target self-directed do-it-yourselfers, who are
comfort-
able making their own investment decisions. We are also
unlikely
to serve validators, who are merely looking for reassurance that
their decisions are correct.
March
2019.

This includes developing a detailed under-
standing of customer needs, segmenting cus-
tomers, and then identifying unique ways of
creating value for the ones the firm chooses
to serve. It also calls for an analysis of compet-
itors’ current strategies and a prediction of
how they might change in the future. The pro-
cess must involve a rigorous, objective assess-
ment of the firm’s capabilities and resources
and those of competitors, as described in
“Competing on Resources: Strategy in the
1990s,” by David J. Collis and Cynthia A. Mont-
gomery (HBR July–August 1995)—not just a
feel-good exercise of identifying core compe-
tencies. The creative part of developing strat-
egy is finding the sweet spot that aligns the
firm’s capabilities with customer needs in a
way that competitors cannot match given the
changing external context—factors such as
technology, industry demographics, and regu-
lation. (See the exhibit “The Strategic Sweet
Spot.”) We have found that one of the best
ways to do this is to develop two or three
plausible but very different strategic options.
For example, fleshing out two dramatically
different alternatives—becoming a cheap
Red Lobster or a fish McDonald’s—helped
executives at the Long John Silver’s chain of

restaurants understand the strategic choices
that they had to make. They had been trying
to do a bit of everything, and this exercise
showed them that their initiatives—such
as offering early-evening table service and
expanding drive-through service—were stra-
tegically inconsistent. (Competing on the
basis of table service requires bigger restaurants
and more employees, while drive-through
service requires high-traffic locations and
smaller footprints.) As a result, they chose to
be a fish McDonald’s, building smaller restau-
rants with drive-through service in high-
traffic locations.
The process of developing the strategy and
then crafting the statement that captures its
essence in a readily communicable manner
should involve employees in all parts of the
company and at all levels of the hierarchy.
The wording of the strategy statement should
be worked through in painstaking detail. In
fact, that can be the most powerful part of
the strategy development process. It is usually
in heated discussions over the choice of a single
word that a strategy is crystallized and execu-
tives truly understand what it will involve.
The end result should be a brief statement
that reflects the three elements of an effective
strategy. It should be accompanied by detailed
annotations that elucidate the strategy’s nu-
ances (to preempt any possible misreading)
and spell out its implications. (See the exhibit
“Leaving No Room for Misinterpretation.”)

When the strategy statement is circulated
throughout the company, the value proposi-
tion chart and activity-system map should
be attached. They serve as simple reminders
of the twin aspects of competitive advantage
that underpin the strategy. Cascading the
statement throughout the organization, so
that each level of management will be the
teacher for the level below, becomes the
starting point for incorporating strategy into
everyone’s behavior. The strategy will really
have traction only when executives can be
confident that the actions of empowered
frontline employees will be guided by the
same principles that they themselves follow.
• • •
The value of rhetoric should not be underesti-
mated. A 35-word statement can have a
substantial impact on a company’s success.
Words do lead to action. Spending the time to
develop the few words that truly capture your
strategy and that will energize and empower
your people will raise the long-term financial
performance of your organization.
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HBR.ORG JanuaRy–FeBRuaRy 2011
reprint r1101L
How to Make
The Most of
Your Company’s
Strategy
The art of translating top management’s aspirations
into concrete action on the ground by Stephen Bungay
March 2019.
http://hbr.org
http://hbr.org/search/R1101L
How to Make the Most of
Your Company’s Strategy

the art of translating top management’s
aspirations into concrete action on the
ground by Stephen Bungay
2 Harvard Business Review January–February 2011This
document is authorized for use only in Business Strategy for
Sustainable Competitive Advantage EMBA 6100 by Hofkin at
Laureate Education - Baltimore from November 2013 to
March 2019.
Il
lu
st
R
at
Io
n
: C
la
R
e
M
a
ll
Is
o

n
Stephen Bungay ([email protected]
stephenbungay.com) is a
director of the ashridge
strategic Management
Centre and the author of
The Art of Action: How
Leaders Close the Gaps
Between Plans, Actions and
Results (nicholas Brealey
Publishing, 2011), on which
this article is based.
I
n the decades since Peter Drucker first
urged executives to manage by objec-
tives, companies have replaced his
famous “letter to the boss” with ever
more elaborate and time-consuming
processes for setting goals. The result
is usually a profusion of measures and
targets, finally approved six months into
the year they are supposed to cover, that
only add to the confusion about what
really matters to the business. For most managers,
the big unanswered question remains: What do you
want me to do?
This article is about how to answer that ques-
tion. In the following pages you will read about a
process I call strategy briefing, a technique derived
from the military. Through it, managers and their
reports can move together from the uncertainty sur-

rounding seemingly complex goals and performance
measures to clarity about just which objectives each
person needs to focus on, in what order of priority.
The briefing also helps managers set parameters for
two variables that are the bedrock of high perfor-
mance: the extent to which people in an organiza-
tion act in line with its leaders’ intentions, and how
much freedom they have to take independent action.
FoR aRtICle RePRInts Call 800-988-0886 oR 617-783-7500, oR
vIsIt hBr.org
January–February 2011 Harvard Business Review
3CoPyRigHt © 2011 HaRvaRd Business sCHool PuBlisHing
CoRPoRation. all RigHts ReseRved.This document is authorized
for use only in Business Strategy for Sustainable Competitive
Advantage EMBA 6100 by Hofkin at Laureate Education -
Baltimore from November 2013 to
March 2019.
http://hbr.org
In essence, the briefing turns lofty strategic goals
into a clear blueprint for execution.
In what follows I’ll walk you through the five-
step briefing process, illustrating it with a fictional
example stitched together from my own experi-
ences as a consultant and a teacher. To conclude I’ll
explain how to roll the process up, down, and across
your organization.
The road to Confusion Is Paved
With good Intentions
Joe was a star. An engineer, he also had an MBA and

worked at a large, well-established information ser-
vices company. A year after moving into product de-
velopment, he was asked to set up a low-cost R&D
center in Asia. By introducing new, less expensive
offerings, the company hoped to fend off increasing
competition from cheaper rivals.
Six months into the project, Joe convened an off-
site. After presenting the company’s goals and chal-
lenges, he asked the people attending for thoughts
on how they could help meet them. After a few
moments’ silence, one of the senior technicians
raised his hand. “I don’t want to sound negative,”
he said, “but what exactly are we really trying to
achieve?”
Joe was taken aback. “It’s perfectly clear, isn’t
it? We’re creating a new center to develop low-cost
products. We’ve got two years. You know the situ-
ation, and you know the company’s strategy. I just
went through it.”
“Sure,” came the reply, “but frankly, I’m still
confused. There’s lots of stuff in our goals about
shareholder value, reinventing ourselves, thinking
globally, and embracing change. There’s stuff about
being innovative and delivering superior customer
satisfaction, and there are targets for increasing
revenue, lowering costs, and raising margins. Well,
I don’t get it. From where I sit the sky’s falling in.
We’re in a deep recession, the competition is eat-
ing our lunch, revenues are falling, margins are
shot to bits, customers are starting to hate us, and
all anyone seems to care about is getting rid of peo-
ple to save money. Some of us are probably next.
Where are we in all this? What are we supposed

to do?”
Joe sensed that he needed to take control. “OK,”
he said, “I hear you. And you’re right. Let’s sit down
and work it out now so we’re all singing from the
same sheet. Let’s not just talk; let’s write it down, so
we all know exactly what we are about.”
J oe went over to a flip chart and wrote down “Task + Purpose.”
Under “Task” he wrote “what,” and under “Purpose” he wrote
“why.”
As he turned back to his audience, he saw to his sur-
prise that people had perked up. “So we’ll answer
those questions, right?” he said. “Here and now.”
The discussion began as usual with an aspira-
tion. It was not long before the words “world class”
were uttered, as someone suggested that the team’s
purpose was to “build a world-class development
facility.” Some of the team members liked that. Oth-
ers rolled their eyes. “Look,” somebody piped up,
“that’s an aspiration anyone could have. It makes
no difference; it’s vague and has nothing to do with
our situation.” The first version was crossed out.
The purpose became “To build a new development
facility.”
“But that’s just a description of what we’re doing,”
came the objection. “Isn’t the question, What are we
trying to achieve?”
“We need to reduce costs,” came the answer. So
perhaps that was the “why.”
Step 1

State Your Intent
The TakeaWay
Joe began by trying to
define what his group’s
intent was, essentially
drafting a statement
outlining what the
people above him ex-
pected his group to do
and why. If you were a
soldier, you’d recog-
nize this intent as your
mission. Getting to the
right statement is not
easy; it took Joe and his
team several tries. But
a clearly defined intent
unifies a team’s effort.
Before the off-site, Joe’s
people had been gen-
erating a lot of activity.
Once they had agreed
upon the statement,
they could see which
activities supported the
intent and stop the rest.
That produced a degree
of calm in his over-
worked department.
4 Harvard Business Review January–February 2011
hoW To Make The MoST oF your CoMPany’S STraTegy

March 2019.
Idea in Brief
Managers struggle to translate corpo-
rate strategy into what they should actu-
ally be doing. How can that challenge be
addressed? through strategy briefing, a
five-step approach to planning that origi-
nated with the military. It provides a way
for managers and their reports to move
together from confusion around a complex
set of goals and measures to clarity around
just which objectives each person needs to
focus on and when.
Joe called a halt to the increasingly fractious dis-
cussion. “Let’s step back a second,” he suggested.
“What is the situation?” He tried to sum it up, for both
himself and the others:
“The company’s revenues are declining by 10%
a year, in part because we’re in the worst market
in history but also because we’re losing share. Our
cost base is 30% too high, our products are old, and
customer satisfaction is falling. We claim to be in-
novative, but new-product development is blocked.
Our job, surely, is to unblock it. If we do that, it will
reduce operating costs and improve customer satis-
faction, and that will help sales.”
Joe felt somewhat liberated by what he had just

said. Like everyone else, he had a mental list of what
needed to be done. The company always had to im-
prove costs, revenues, margins, and service. But he
had just articulated the relationship between them
for the first time. New-product development was the
link that completed the chain. He realized that for
him success meant getting products out now.
The discussion continued. Half an hour later, the
group had its first answer on the flip chart:
What: to significantly reduce time to market for
development, enhancements, and support of high-
quality products to our customers in a cost-effective
manner.
Why: In order to help aggressively grow our rev-
enues and increase our margins.
During lunch Joe went outside to think. He did
not like what the team had written. It was too broad
and too unrealistic. How was the firm going to aggres-
sively grow in the current market? He ruefully real-
ized that he should have thought about this long ago.
He needed to set the scene for his people.
Joe went back to the flip chart and turned down a new sheet. At
the top of it he wrote, “Context.” Then he listed four
observations:
1. the company’s market share is being eroded by
competitors under some of the most difficult trad-
ing conditions in our history.
2. the loss of share must be halted, or we will have
no basis for future growth.
3. Customer service is the key to halting this decline,

but with the existing product line, it’s impos-
sible to deliver outstanding service at acceptable
margins.
4. With the current loss of accounts, every day that
passes makes recovery more difficult.
The group came back in as he finished. “Does
that help?” he asked. There were nods as people read
what he had written. “Actually, we’ve got a crucial
role in all of this, haven’t we?” observed one of the
head programmers.
“And,” somebody added, “if it’s true, it means that
what matters is time. We’ve got to speed things up.”
“Is that right?” someone else asked. “Is that what
the company wants us to do?”
“Let’s look again at what the company strategy
document says,” Joe replied. He fiddled around on
his laptop until the words of the corporation filled
the screen:
We are committed to delivering Great service to
our customers. this will require us to build a strong
service-based culture. this will be achieved by a
combination of improved customer and market
Step 2
Try Again–This
Time ın Context
the steps are (1) state your
intent, or what you are expected
to do and why, (2) revise it in

the context of your company’s
situation, (3) determine which
measures best indicate whether
you’re achieving your goal,
(4) define the tasks implied by
your intent, and (5) define the
boundaries, or constraints, that
limit your team.
the process is repeated
throughout the organization,
with the tasks formulated by a
group becoming the intents of
the groups below them. In this
way, a strategy is broken down
into a cascade of discrete but
linked elements that align the
organization.
The TakeaWay
Before a group can
arrive at the right state-
ment of intent, its leader
needs to set a context.
Context setting requires
understanding the goals
and constraints of both
the people above you
and the people above
them. Going two levels
up helps you to see how
your own actions fit
into the bigger picture
and to determine your
priorities. Keep in mind
that revisions are critical

to the briefing process.
Progress is made only
through an iterative pro-
cess of formulation, cri-
tique, and readjustment.
January–February 2011 Harvard Business Review 5
vIsIt hBr.org
March 2019.
http://hbr.org
segmentation capability, improved customer service
processes and tools, and, significantly, specific
customer-focused behaviors’ being constantly dem-
onstrated both internally and with external custom-
ers. the goal is to reshape the business to deliver
superior shareholder value over a sustained period.
The group stared blankly at the screen. “Market-
ing wrote that,” someone commented.
“More like HR,” said another person. “Though fi-
nance finally got their oar in at the end.”
“Think about what’s behind it,” Joe said. “It says
there is going to be a change. The clock’s ticking. We
have to give customers better service than our com-
petitors do if we are to get them back, and we’ve got

to make money as well.”
“So how do we fit in?” someone asked.
“If the company is to compete on service, it needs
us to come up with the products to enable it to do so,”
Joe replied. “It used to be all about technology and
features, but it’s a service game now. I was talking to
the head of technology about it. He wants a coherent
suite of products, not the mess we’ve got now, with
different offerings for every region and every client.
I’ve talked to the head of Asia as well. The costs are
killing us. We have to make some hard choices. Sales
won’t like it, but there it is. It is our call. Why don’t
we try to write it down, simply, and work out what it
is that senior management wants us to do? What was
their intention when they wrote all this?”
Forty minutes and several flip-chart sheets later,
Joe’s group had a formulation, which it decided to
call “Higher Intent.” The formulation read:
TWo LeveLS uP (CorPoraTe)
What: to transform the company within the next
three years.
Why: In order to deliver superior service and finan-
cial performance.
one LeveL uP (TeChnoLogy grouP)
What: to develop and support a coherent product
line that is easy to service.
Why: In order to allow sales and marketing to grow
revenues.
“Our job,” said Joe, “is to fulfill the technology
group’s intent in Asia. Their intent tells us a few
things that should drive every decision. The new

products have to be simpler to service, or they’re
no good. They have to fit in with what’s being done
globally, and the local salespeople will have to live
with that—no more customization. We’ve got to de-
sign products with sales and marketing to make sure
they’ll sell. They have to be low cost or we can’t make
money. And we’ve got to move fast. Now let’s look at
our earlier intent statement again. What do we have
to do now?”
The immediate needs were defensive. There was
no way anyone could grow revenues and margins in
the current climate. The firm had to stop the erosion
of market share. It was also clear that the company
had to get something new out the door that year.
Moreover, Joe’s group needed to focus its efforts;
more than 250 products, in all stages, were in the
pipeline, and the group would have to decide which
ones would make the most difference.
Finally, the team came up with this statement of
intent:
What: to accelerate delivery of critical products to
market.
Why: In order to enable sales channels to halt mar-
ket share erosion by year-end.
“Is this ambitious enough?” someone asked. “It
doesn’t sound particularly inspiring.”
“This is enough,” said Joe. “If we give ourselves a
target we can’t achieve, we’re setting ourselves up
for failure. But that reminds me, we need some mea-
sures so that we know what we’re doing is working.
We haven’t finished yet.”

“If we give ourselves a target
we can’t achieve,” Joe said,
“we’re setting ourselves up
for failure.”
6 Harvard Business Review January–February 2011This
March 2019.
Joe and his team determined that to achieve the objectives they
had just outlined, they needed to focus on three things—time,
mar-
ket share, and costs. They expressed each in terms
of a goal:
1. Deliver agreed product set by year-end and on
budget.
2. see that total market share in asia at the end of
the year equals the share at the beginning of the
year.
3. Reduce operating costs for development in the
region by 20%.
There was a pause. They were all studying the flip
chart. Someone frowned. “We ourselves cannot stop
market share from declining,” he said. “Do we want
to be measured on that?”

“Strictly speaking, no,” replied Joe, “but it is the
purpose behind everything we are doing. If the rate
at which we’re losing share goes down, we’ll know
what we’re doing is working, even if we don’t hit the
target. If we don’t look at it, we might be barking up
the wrong tree.”
“What about what we are measured on?” some-
one piped up. “We’ve all got targets. Dozens of them.”
So they had, including Joe himself. Part of his bonus
was tied to the number of new products delivered.
Optimizing that would not be difficult—he could just
go for the easy development projects nearest com-
pletion. But they might not have the most impact.
“Look,” he said, “I’ll make a commitment to you. I
will renegotiate the targets for this group. I’ll explain
what we are doing and that the measures
are just there to tell us whether we’re
successful or not. The outcome is
what we’re trying to optimize.
The measures are the dashboard.
We should not confuse the read-
ings on it with what we really
want to do, which is to arrive
on time at our destination.
When we’ve worked out
who is doing what, I’ll
measure your per-
formance on how

well you accomplish
your assigned tasks.
What I want to know
from you now is what
you think those tasks
should be.”
Step 3
Set Your Measures
The TakeaWay
You need measures to
monitor whether or not
you’re achieving your
intent. Sometimes, if
your briefing is going
well, you’ll find that
the activities you see
as most appropriate to
your intent aren’t the
ones you are actually
assessed on. If that’s
the case, it becomes
the responsibility of the
team leader to go back
to the people above him
or her and negotiate
new performance mea-
sures, as Joe decides to
do here.
vIsIt hBr.org
January–February 2011 Harvard Business Review 7This

March 2019.
http://hbr.org
The people in Joe’s group started by looking at what they were
actually doing. They were involved in three types of activity:
growing
an offshore facility, improving costs and efficiency,
and working on various initiatives related to morale
and customer service. They decided to do only what
was essential and to sideline initiatives not related
to their intent.
Then they realized they’d left something out.
Someone needed to figure out which products were
critical to the company’s goals—an issue no one was
addressing. That was the first task. The
team members knew that some work on
costs would have to continue but that it
was even more important to speed up
development and deliver something
good to the sales force. To ensure that
people didn’t get distracted from that
task, they decided to dedicate half the
staff solely to development and have
the rest work only on enhancements
and support. In sum, four main tasks
were implied by the intent:
1. Identify the critical products.
2. accelerate development of those
products.

3. Create enhancements to existing
products faster and provide more-
responsive product support.
4. Reduce costs.
If Joe and his group accomplished
all those goals, they would achieve their intent—
and be heroes. But suppose they had to make trade-
offs? Joe looked at the list. “In all of this,” he asked,
“what’s really vital? If we had to cut, where would we
cut last?”
The team members had a debate. Though they
needed to define the critical products, they could get
that broadly right. They had to reduce costs, but if
they failed, they could accept low margins for a time.
The thing that mattered most was the fast develop-
ment of new products—if they didn’t get that right
this year, all else would be in vain. Joe went back to
the chart and drew a red circle around “Accelerate
development.” Next to it, he wrote, “Main effort.”
It was time for a break. Joe went for a stroll out-
side and reflected. The group had started with a list
of things to do that were only loosely related and
varied in importance. Putting that to one side, the
participants had thought through what needed to be
done most so that the tasks were prioritized. They
had filled in a key missing piece in their
to-do list—identifying the critical prod-
ucts. And they also had a list of tasks

that didn’t overlap, so people could
tackle them without getting in one an-
other’s way. Now Joe wanted to assign
the tasks to his people and have them
come up with a plan for accomplishing
them. He didn’t want to dictate how
to do things; his reports all knew their
jobs better than he did and needed to
put some creative thought into their
plans. He wanted to give them space.
But how could he set the right param-
eters for them?
Joe went back in, and as the team re-
assembled, he wrote a new heading on
each of two flip charts: “Freedoms” and
“Constraints.” The brainstorming began.
A quarter of an hour later, the list under
“Freedoms” included “senior management support,”
“motivated employees,” and “the importance of new
products.” A longer list under “Constraints” included
“concerns about our ability to deliver,” “customer re-
luctance to adopt new products,” “competitor activ-
ity,” and “organizational complexity.”
Step 4
Define the
Tasks Implied
By Your Intent
The TakeaWay
Your next job is to
prioritize the tasks that

you’ve decided will help
you meet your intent.
Joe identified his highest
priority, or “main effort,”
as accelerating develop-
ment, because it would
have the largest impact
on the company’s overall
intent of halting the
decline in market share.
that meant that if he lost
people midyear because
of head-count reduc-
tions, he would transfer
engineers working on
product enhancement
and support into devel-
opment so that market
introductions would not
be delayed.
March 2019.
Joe stepped back. Everyone looked a bit blank. The lists weren’t
very helpful. They looked like a list of good things and a list of
bad things.
The bad ones were more complaints than constraints,

plus a few worries. The lists didn’t show what people
were or were not free to do.
“Let’s try again,” he said. “Let’s really try to think
about what we can or can’t do. Let’s begin with the
constraints.”
It soon became clear that there were two big ones:
They were trying to optimize time, but cost and qual-
ity imposed boundaries. Within a few minutes there
was an earnest debate among the participants, which
started to get passionate and technical at the same
time. Joe stopped it. “We’ve just identified another
aspect of the tasks,” he said. “We’re going to have to
work this out as we go. Let’s not assume we know
the answer already.” He
wrote down the two
constraints:
1. Product quality—
to be defined with
reference to customer
needs and the service
organization.
2. Product cost—require-
ments set by budget
and competitive
benchmarks.
Though Joe’s group had no control over those
constraints, it had to find out what they were. He and
his team realized that by defining their boundaries,
they were also identifying whom they had to talk to
both inside and outside the organization. The discus-
sion became more concrete and more focused. They

identified two more constraints and a question:
3. the requirement to reduce the number of devel-
opment centers—to be agreed on with the head
of asia.
4. Product obsolescence program—to be agreed on
with global product management.
5. Who has final decision on new-product develop-
ment projects?
As he looked at these, Joe realized that he had de-
fined his own role. His job as leader was to manage
the team’s boundaries. Tackling the first four con-
straints would involve working with the decision
makers and ensuring that the team’s proposals were
good enough to be accepted. The fifth item on the list
was something he had to clarify. He made a note to
himself to raise the issues with both his regional boss
and his functional boss when he saw them next.
The shadows were lengthening and people were
tired; time to call it a day. “Well,” said Joe, after he’d
assigned the four tasks to different managers, “I
want each of you leading a task to come back to me
by the end of next week to tell me how you are going
to tackle it. Now, let’s have a drink before we head to
the airport.”
Step 5
Define the
Boundaries
The TakeaWay
To execute a strategy,

employees need to
be able to adapt as
the situation changes.
Boundaries give them
the freedom to do that.
That sounds paradoxi-
cal, but in my experi-
ence, if they’re not given
boundaries, people
create more rigid ones
for themselves. In the
process, they tend to list
things that are getting
in their way or might go
wrong. Those are not
boundaries but difficul-
ties we want them to
overcome. A boundary
puts limits on possible
alternative objectives.
In Joe’s case, time, cost,
and quality were all
potential objectives. But
he could optimize only
one, time. Thus, the oth-
ers became constraints,
or boundaries. He could
do whatever he wanted
to optimize time subject
to achieving minimum
standards for cost and
quality.
January–February 2011 Harvard Business Review 9

vIsIt hBr.org
March 2019.
http://hbr.org
The rollout
A single strategy briefing like the one I’ve just de-
scribed can help an individual team perform bet-
ter, but the real magic happens when briefings are
held throughout an organization. When, at the end
of the story, Joe assigns the tasks and asks his re-
ports to develop their own plans, it means that they
must now conduct their own briefings with their
subordinates.
In each of his subordinates’ statements of intent
the “why” will be Joe’s “what”—to accelerate deliv-
ery to market of critical products—and the “what”
will be the task Joe assigned that person. So for the
first of his direct reports, the intent will be “to iden-
tify the critical set of products in order to accelerate
their delivery to market”; for the second, “to speed
up development in order to accelerate the delivery of
critical products to market”; and so on. Each of those
four people’s direct reports will then work out their
implied tasks and pass those along to their subordi-
nates with their “whats.” The process will continue
until no further analysis is necessary. In this way a
company’s strategy is broken down into a cascade
of discrete but linked elements that give a clear view

downward toward actions and upward toward the
company’s strategy, and align functions across the
organization.
The rollout must also incorporate a feedback pro-
cess in which the leader of a group that has just con-
ducted a briefing presents the output to the people
he or she reports to. In Joe’s case, this “back-briefing”
should involve a discussion of the metrics that he
and his group came up with, which differed from
the official targets.
In back-briefings three things happen. First, the
unit doing the back-briefing checks its understand-
ing of the direction it has received or worked out.
Second, superiors gain clarity about the implications
of the direction they originally gave and may revise
it as a result—as Joe’s bosses would probably do for
the metrics. Third, it provides an opportunity to en-
sure alignment across the organization as well as up
and down; if Joe’s reports give their back-briefings
to him together, he can check for gaps, overlaps, and
coherence.
eFFeCTIve BrIeFIng helps unlock hidden sources of
productivity. It offers a practical way to ensure that
the people in your company are both strategically
aligned and operationally autonomous, a combina-
tion that has been the hallmark of high-performance
organizations for 2,000 years—since the days of the
Roman army. Now part of military practice through-
out NATO, the strategy briefing technique has a 150-
year track record, going back to the 19th-century
Prussian army, of enabling forces to cope with the
fast-changing uncertainties of warfare. Given that
the business environment has become equally un-

predictable, it’s time for companies to adopt it as
well. It may be the best investment in time you will
ever make. hBr reprint R1101l
Joe realized that he had defined his own role.
His job as leader was to manage the team’s boundaries.
C
a
Rt
o
o
n
: P
a
u
l
Ka
le
s
“sir, are you sure it’s a good idea to have a mission statement
with irony?”

March 2019.
http://hbr.org/search/R1101L

www.hbr.orgCan You Say What Your Strategy Isby .docx

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