Richard Rumelt

"This" refers to implementing a coherent business strategy, which Rumelt defines as requiring diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent actions working together.

The senior executives have to do this. The senior executives know pretty much everything you need to know to do this, but they disagree about the importance of different things. And more importantly, they occupy positions of power that, if we go this way, this is going to be hurt.

What makes it hard? Client will tell me, 'Oh, we want to open up business in Australia. It's a market we haven't tapped.' And I'll say, 'Okay, so why are you and I talking about that? You're the CEO. Just tell somebody to do it. What makes it hard?'

All strategy is problem solving. It's a form of dealing with challenges. Strategy is always about dealing with an issue, a challenge, a problem.

Bad strategy is a set of profit goals or performance goals. Goals are not strategy, they're ambitions. Ambitions are not a strategy.

Don't call it strategy, call it an action agenda. Begin to try to identify the one or two key challenges that can actually be addressed and what are we going to do about it? What are the coherent actions we're going to do to take these on?

One of the big issues in strategy is simply the organization, complex organizations particularly. You have a hard time focusing energy because of all the different interests.

"This" refers to implementing a coherent business strategy, while "going this way" means pursuing the strategic direction being proposed.

The senior executives have to do this. The senior executives know pretty much everything you need to know to do this, but they disagree about the importance of different things. And more importantly, they occupy positions of power that, if we go this way, this is going to be hurt.

Each time you say yes, you risk turning a nascent good strategy into a bad strategy. Focus is the fundamental source of power and strategy.

To undertake a strategy that you think will work, you've got to have a reason that it makes sense and that reason is derived from some source of power, some source of advantage.

How do you figure out your power? Start with asymmetries. In what way is my company different than other companies? What do we know that other people don't know? What do we possess that other people don't possess?

If two fighters are equally balanced, it's 50/50. For a strategy you need to exploit an asymmetry of some kind. You hear a little faster. Or they're a little... Something has to be different.