Richard Rumelt: A “challenge-led” approach to creating effective strategy

In his recent book, A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness, management guru Roger Martin asks why, when it comes to conventional approaches to strategy development, the operations managers in most large and mid-sized firms “dread the annual strategic planning ritual.” Why does an effort which seems to “consume so much time” have “so little impact on company actions,” and why in the end does it generally fail to produce exciting new strategic departures but mainly perpetuates “the status quo?”[¹]

There must be a better way to create strategy, and strategy expert, Richard...