Richard Rumelt - Collected Quotes

"A leader’s most important job is creating and constantly adjusting this strategic bridge between goals and objectives." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy/Bad Strategy", 2011)

"A strategy coordinates action to address a specific challenge. It is not defined by the pay grade of the person authorizing the action." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy/Bad Strategy", 2011)

"Despite the roar of voices wanting to equate strategy with ambition, leadership, 'vision', planning, or the economic logic of competition, strategy is none of these. The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy Bad Strategy", 2011)

"Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy/Bad Strategy", 2011)

"Having conflicting goals, dedicating resources to unconnected targets, and accommodating incompatible interests are the luxuries of the rich and powerful, but they make for bad strategy. Despite this, most organizations will not create focused strategies. Instead, they will generate laundry lists of desirable outcomes and, at the same time, ignore the need for genuine competence in coordinating and focusing their resources. Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy/Bad Strategy", 2011)

"The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy/Bad Strategy", 2011)

"When organizations are unable to make new strategies - when people evade the work of choosing among different paths in the future - then you get vague mom-and-apple-pie goals everyone can agree on. Such goals are direct evidence of leadership's insufficient will or political power to make or enforce hard choices." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy/Bad Strategy", 2011)