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Does the strategy slow down your activity? This is supposed to increase your business higher! If this is not the case for you, your business may need to consider a book before calling a strategy consultant. Written by a strategy consultant with global experience, "Making Better Decisions: How to Define and Simplify Business Strategy" should be this book. This book breaks down the components of the strategy into a process optimized for your business.
The business strategy is an area that should be simple. All you have to do is choose your business goals and follow. Yet companies struggle with this very simple process. This failure occurs despite consultants, magazines, articles, courses, workshops, and SlideShare presentations. But why? The book by Tim Lewko, Improving Big Decisions: How to Define and Simplify Business Strategy points the figure to a very simple answer. His book argues that we do not understand what "strategy" really means, so we do not know how do strategy. Improving Major Decisions shows how to correct this problem.
What makes great decisions better?
Lewko's book begins with a very simple question. But a very simple question can often lead to radically different answers.
The question posed by Lewko? What is the strategy?
Go ahead and ask this question at your workplace or in your company. You are guaranteed to get different answers.
These responses reflect the different perspectives that people have on what exactly is the strategy and how it is used. If you believe this strategy is "something we do once a year at the annual retreat," your planning may ignore the daily steps of implementing a strategy. If you consider the strategy as a one-time event rather than a process, you can stick to a strategy that has failed because you have not taken the time to look for alternatives.
Different definitions can become costly for businesses. After all, they spend money on consultants, new software tools and courses to help implement these strategies. And when a strategy fails, companies lose not only the money invested, but also the customers, the potential profits and the morale of the employees. In other words, businesses are jeopardizing not only their current productivity but potentially the future. Unfortunately, companies can not correct the failures of the strategy with more strategy. Instead, says Lewko, teams need to better understand what strategy is in the first place – and what it can do.
Most companies never ask the question, "What does strategy mean to us?"
Rather, they rely on assumptions, tradition, and best practices that they have copied from others to make their strategy. Improving Great Decisions asks readers to come out of the same old processes that everyone follows and reflects. In doing so, they will discover that the strategy is not as complicated or boring as it looks.
Lewko is Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of the Thinking Dimensions Group. In addition to this role, he is Executive Director of The Global Strategy Practice.
What better way to make big decisions?
The best part of Making Big Decisions Better is that it greatly simplifies the concept of business strategy. Once readers grasp this concept, the book guides them in dismantling the hidden assumptions and mind-sets that block people from an effective strategy. If you've ever wondered, "Why does our company do things this way?", "Make Great Decisions" will guide you through the process in the same way as an expert consultant. If you want a consultant overview without having to pay a consultant, this book can certainly serve as an inexpensive option.
What could have been done differently?
Improving Major Decisions does an excellent job of breaking down the concept of "strategy" to its most basic and useful level. The point of view and audience for the book – senior management in medium and large companies – seems very close. This makes some of the contents of the book either irrelevant or confusing. That said, the book still provides excellent insight into the underlying assumptions about the business strategy of many negligent business leaders. For this reason alone, the book is worth the detour.
Why read better decisions?
Strategy should be one of the easiest topics for a business. However, it has become very clear that this is not the case. In fact, the strategy of a company can become an obstacle. And the solution to this problem is not what you could expect.
As Making Big Decisions Better points out, the problem (and the solution) could be much simpler than you think. The problem may not have to do with the strategy you use. This could be about how you use the concept of strategy in the first place. Improving Major Decisions Helps readers uncover and correct underlying assumptions that prevent businesses from adopting the strategies they deserve