Myths of Strategy

Dispel the Misconceptions and Deliver a Winning Strategy

Jérôme Barthélemy

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781398607828
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781398607835
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

Every business should introduce new technologies to improve their performance? The only way to innovate is to think outside of the box? And obviously, having a Chief Strategy Officer is a guarantee of success. Really?

The reality is that there are no magic recipes for success. If there were, every company would use them, and no single company would be outstanding.

Business strategy is messy, requires hard graft and is difficult to get right. And yet the world of strategy is dominated by management consultants and business gurus making sweeping generalizations, oversimplifying business thinking and peddling their own unfounded ideas. But do these methods actually work?

Myths of Strategy debunks thirty of these most common strategy sagas, cutting through consultant hyperbole and provide you with tried and test business ideas that will make your company more successful.

About the Business Myths series...

The Business Myths series tackles the falsehoods that pervade the business world. From leadership and management to social media, strategy and the workplace, these accessible books overturn out-of-date assumptions, skewer stereotypes and put oft-repeated slogans to the test. Entertaining and rigorously researched, these books will equip you with the insight and no-nonsense wisdom you need to succeed.

Table of contents

• About the author
• Introduction
• MYTH 1  You should look to the best for inspiration
• MYTH 2  Strategy is very different from the sciences
• MYTH 3  The most successful strategies are carefully planned
• MYTH 4  Success is essentially about talent
• MYTH 5  It is impossible to think strategically in an environment of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
• MYTH 6  Direct aim is the best way to attain goals
• MYTH 7  Firms achieve higher performance when they adopt a raison d’être
• MYTH 8  Having a corporate social responsibility strategy is bad for performance
• MYTH 9  The best strategy is to set up an attractive business and try to beat competitors
• MYTH 10  In most firms, costs are too high
• MYTH 11  In the digital era, having the best or cheapest product is enough for success
• MYTH 12  A firm must address its weaknesses before it develops its strengths
• MYTH 13  Business success depends primarily on a firm’s capabilities
• MYTH 14  The best business leaders are visionaries
• MYTH 15  Businesses benefit from hiring stars
• MYTH 16  Interviews are the best technique for selecting new employees
• MYTH 17  A good strategy is enough for success
• MYTH 18  It’s easy to drop a strategy that has failed to deliver
• MYTH 19  Boards of directors are willing to challenge bad strategy decisions
• MYTH 20  Innovation requires state-of-the-art technologies
• MYTH 21  To innovate, businesses need experts
• MYTH 22  Always listen to customers
• MYTH 23  Innovating means offering customers new products or services
• MYTH 24  Businesses innovate more when they have more resources
• MYTH 25  Business leaders have a long-term outlook
• MYTH 26  It is impossible to reconcile the long term and the short term
• MYTH 27  A firm that’s improving is headed for success
• MYTH 28  Change is always good for businesses
• MYTH 29  The first thing to do in a recession is cut costs
• MYTH 30  Process management improves performance
• MYTH 31  Mergers and acquisitions create value for shareholders
• MYTH 32  Outsourcing is good for firms
• MYTH 33  Adopting management fads is pointless
• MYTH 34  Financial analysts like firms that have an original strategy
• MYTH 35  Consultants always help improve performance
• Index