The Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership - Hardcover

Freedman, Mike

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 007141066X ISBN 13: 9780071410663

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 2002

Synopsis

"The strategy process Mike Freedman so ably discusses has been put to work at La-Z-Boy. You will come away from The Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership better equipped to not only think more incisively about future competitive advantage, but your organization will have greater strategic focus at every level, beginning with the top management team."--Gerald L. Kiser, President & Chief Executive Officer, La-Z-Boy Incorporated

A powerful new approach to strategy setting from a worldwide leader in strategic thinking

Written by a leading consultant at Kepner-Tregoe, one of the world's most respected strategy consulting groups, The Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership goes far beyond most other strategy books to offer business strategists an integrated five-phase model for setting and implementing strategy.

Proven effective at a diverse range of organizations worldwide, the model provides executives with a powerful framework for assessing and tweaking current strategy, or charting a bold new strategic course.

Encompassing all the critical phases of the strategic process, The Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership shows readers how to:

• Gather and analyze strategic intelligence
• Craft a strategy
• Develop an implementation plan
• Take action
• Monitor progress and more

Throughout, key points are illustrated with case examples from a diverse range of organizations, including Hallmark, Hong Kong and China Gas, Lockheed Martin, Savoy Hotel Group, and others.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Drive Breakthrough Strategic Thinking Throughout Every Level of your Organization

"A gold mine of strategic insight and practical advice, with case examples drawn from Mike Freedman's stellar international consulting career. This book will change your concept of what strategy is and how to make it drive your organization."--Robert A. Lutz, Vice Chairman, Product Development, and Chairman, GM North America, General Motors Corporation

"I only wish I'd had this book to guide me years ago when I was named chief executive of the UK's largest (yet failing) transport company. This is a template for every CEO seeking to formulate a new strategy and revitalize tired values."--Sir Peter Thompson, former Chairman, National Freight Company, and UK Businessman of the Year

"Mike Freedman brings a holistic approach, deep thinking, and broad practical experience to the subject of strategic leadership. Read this book and you will improve your understanding of strategy and your role in it, wherever you are in the organization."--Sir Bryan Nicholson, Past President, Confederation of British Industry, Chairman, Cookson Group Plc

"Every corporate leader faces new challenges. This book presents a thought-provoking, integrated, and proven approach to strategy that meets these imperatives head on, and challenges chief executives, their top teams, and future leaders to benchmark their strategic effectiveness. The book also provides breakthrough concepts and processes to help improve strategic performance, arguably the most important aspect of a top team's work."--From the Introduction

Strategic leadership is one of the most used and abused phrases in today's corporate lexicon. The Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership removes the theory and guesswork to reveal strategic leadership for what it really is: guiding an organization to establish a framework within which it will make choices to determine its future nature and direction.

In this thoughtful, pragmatic book, international strategic advisers Mike Freedman and Benjamin Tregoe draw on their extensive experience with leading consulting firm Kepner-Tregoe. Along with examples of successfully implemented approaches from Hallmark International, British Airways, Lockheed Martin, the Bank of Ireland, and many others, they outline a five-phase plan you can use to:

• Gather and analyze intelligence, craft a strategic vision, develop implementation plans, take action, and monitor results
• Secure consistency in strategic decision-making throughout your organization
• Dodge the currently popular--but potentially fatal--trend toward strategic short-termism

As you read these words, your competitors are formulating their own strategies and adopting and adapting your most innovative ideas for their own purposes--to trump your products, steal your customers, and capture your place in the value chain. Your defense? Accept the inevitable obsolescence of your current thinking, formulate and implement a self-renewing strategy, and regain the upper hand in the battle for competitive survival.

Today's uncompromising environment leaves you little choice. Every day, with every decision you make, you must improve your firm's strategic performance. Let The Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership introduce you to a disciplined approach to creating and implementing results-based strategy, by providing tools and techniques for you and your team to discard outmoded standards, think the unthinkable, and implement a fluid and flexible strategy to drive extraordinary business results.

About the Author

Mike Freedman is president of the worldwide strategy practice of consulting company Kepner-Tregoe, Inc. Freedman has lived and worked in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, and has written numerous articles on strategy. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Strategic Direction.

Benjamin B. Tregoe is the co-founder of Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., a management-consulting firm with headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author or co-author of numerous books, including Top Management Strategy, Vision in Action, The Culture of Success, the management classic The Rational Manager, and its sequel The New Rational Manager.

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 007141066X
• ISBN 13: 9780071410663
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288