1.5 - About University

Michael Traceyand FredWiersmaJames MooreAdamBrandenburgerIdentified three value disciplines, only one of which can be the basis of an organization’s strategy:1. Operational excellence—quality, price, and ease of purchase that no competitor can match.2. Product leadership—providing the best possible product(s) to as many customers as possible.3. Customer intimacy—understanding your customers and delivering exactly what they want.Challenged competition as the basis of strategic thinking. “Competitive advantage in the newworld stems from knowing when and how to build ecosystems … .” Like a biological ecosystem,strategies evolve over four stages:1. pioneering or creating a new product or service niche;2. expansion of the ecosystem by working with partners to attain niche dominance;3. maintaining authority in the ecosystem, often by cost-cutting and restructuring;4. finally, as in biological ecosystems, death and renewal due to the changing environment.Framed strategy as games theory with changing rules of competition, including changes to howvalue is added, what tactics are used, how scope is defined, and so on.H OW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL“As Kierkegaard once observed, life is lived forward but understood backward. Managers may have tolive strategy in the future, but they must understand it through the past.”—Henry Mintzberg, MINTZBERG ON MANAGEMENTStrategies are abstractions until they are delivered at the mundane, day-to-day level of operatinga business (i.e., waiting on customers). At this point, your strategy may seem obvious toinsiders, but what outsiders, including competitors, will miss is the deep level of understandingand commitment behind the strategy. Leaders achieve this level of understanding andcommitment by involving as many people as possible in building and adapting a strategy, andby talking with their people on a regular basis about the implications behind the strategy. Usethe workspace here to plan or review your organization’s strategy, and to plan how you willcontinually communicate the strategy within your organization.WEB WORSKHEETElement ofstrategic thinking Things to think about Your action planBe strategic aboutyour strategy.Have a competitiveedge (i.e., be verygood at something).❑ Keep it simple. Strategy needs to be atemplate for decision making. Peopleneed to carry it in their heads and have adeep sense of what is and isn’t strategicfor the organization.❑ Design and adapt your strategy-makingprocess to your specific situation.[☛ 1.8 Recursive Leadership]❑❑Be better at providing a product or servicethan your competitors (e.g., at GE, JackWelch insists on being in the top two, ordropping a product line).At what product(s) or service(s) will youexcel?70 SECTION 3 TOOLS FOR STRATEGIC THINKING