[as re-edited by KR, as at March 30, 2009] The Place Where Dreams Are Born Essays for the Mind of the Strategic Thinker Why Did I Write This Book? - An Introductory Statement from the Author The clever man has all the answers; the wise man has all the questions. This isn’t a book about management theory. I’m a practitioner, not a theorist, so my aim is to stimulate your thinking about how to craft, execute and sustain strategy. I’ve devised a seven-step template that outlines how to do that, and the essays in this book fit within that template. I invite you to dip into the essays in whatever order you choose, depending on the issues you’re facing in your organisation. Know what you don’t know I first started writing these essays in the mid-1990s, but I had formulated the ideas over many years and I’m still developing them, so I believe they’re still applicable today. I don’t claim to offer answers – the essays are designed to help you devise the right questions, and to “know what you don’t know”. One of the things I ask my clients to do is to list three questions, the answers to which would give them tremendous insights into their business and its likely future. Simply by asking the right questions, they open their minds to possible solutions. Often, CEOs don’t ask the right questions. They have to grasp and digest a huge amount of information, and they also fear exposing their weaknesses. If you’re a CEO, the most important question is probably “Do I believe I can do it?” – all the other questions become irrelevant if you hesitate. Clever men; wise men The financial meltdown of the past five years has been driven by “clever men”; arrogant men who thought they had all the answers; “shepherds of soul-less, number-driven strategies” (as I write about in one of the essays). They don’t appreciate the purpose behind the numbers, so they begin to spin out of control and make bad decisions. Wise business leaders, by contrast, understand that the questioning process is the most effective way to formulate a strategy. Good questions make people think differently. Concerning the financial meltdown, we should all be asking “Why didn’t the banks and the regulators ask the right questions about subprime loans?” Why didn’t the banks and regulators ask “Why are we doing this?” And why didn’t someone say “STOP this madness!”?
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