Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds

Beat the odds with a bold strategy from McKinsey & Company

"Every once in a while, a genuinely fresh approach to business strategy appears"
―legendary business professor Richard Rumelt, UCLA

McKinsey & Company's newest, most definitive, and most irreverent book on strategy―which thousands of executives are already using―is a must-read for all C-suite executives looking to create winning corporate strategies.

Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick is spearheading an empirical revolution in the field of strategy. Based on an extensive analysis of the key factors that drove the long-term performance of thousands of global companies, the book offers a ground-breaking formula that enables you to objectively assess your strategy's real odds of future success.

"This book is fundamental. The principles laid out here, with compelling data, are a great way around the social pitfalls in strategy development."
―Frans Van Houten, CEO, Royal Philips N.V.

The authors have discovered that over a 10-year period, just 1 in 12 companies manage to jump from the middle tier of corporate performance―where 60% of companies reside, making very little economic profit―to the top quintile where 90% of global economic profit is made. This movement does not happen by magic―it depends on your company's current position, the trends it faces, and the big moves you make to give it the strongest chance of vaulting over the competition.

This is not another strategy framework. Rather, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick shows, through empirical analysis and the experiences of dozens of companies that have successfully made multiple big moves, that to dramatically improve performance, you have to overcome incrementalism and corporate inertia.

"A different kind of book―I couldn't put it down. Inspiring new insights on the facts of what it takes to move a company's performance, combined with practical advice on how to deal with real-life dynamics in management teams."
―Jane Fraser, CEO, Citigroup Latin America

CHRIS BRADLEY is a Partner in Sydney. He leads McKinsey’s Business Strategy service line.

MARTIN HIRT is a Senior Partner in Greater China. He leads McKinsey’s Global Strategy & Corporate Finance Practice.

SVEN SMIT is a Senior Partner in Amsterdam. He leads McKinsey Western Europe and, before that, led McKinsey’s Strategy Practice. He is the co-author of the bestselling book Granularity of Growth.