Insights from 'The Strategist' By Cynthia Montgomery
Below are some key insights from Cynthia A. Montgomery's "The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs".
It's a good book for both startup founders and established firms. If you're planning to form a strategy for you Computer, Software or Information Technology company, it's a good idea to read it. It's short enough to be completed in a day but packed with actionable insights. - Taofik Abdulkareem
- “Does your company matter. If you close today, would your customers suffer any real loss”
- How long will it take them to find an alternative?
- Good strategies are never frozen
- Strategy & leadership must be reunited at the highest level of a firm
- Understand the competitive forces in your industry. How you respond to them is your strategy
- If you don’t understand them, your strategy is based on luck and hope. That will take you nowhere
- Strategy isn’t always about beating competition
- It’s about ‘serving an unmet need, doing something uniquely well for some set of stakeholders
- The key to a great strategy is PURPOSE.
- ‘Purpose is where performance difference starts’
- Nothing is more important than why a company exists, ‘what otherwise unmet needs it intends to fill’
- Purpose ‘makes a firm’s endeavours noble or more dignified’
- Purpose inspires all stakeholders; staff, customers and others in your value chain
- ‘A good purpose puts a stake on the ground; “We do X, not Y” ‘
- ‘Purpose sets you apart; makes you distinct’
- ‘Purpose sets the stage for value creation and capture’
- Whether there is purpose or it’s viable is a leader’s first responsibility
- Your purpose must create value for others so that you can capture some of it too.
- The acid test for purpose: Will it give you a difference that MATTERS in your industry?
- ‘If your company disappeared today, would the world be different tomorrow?’
- If you won’t be missed, are you really needed now?
