I have to comment about this book as this has been one of the best books I have read in the past 4 years. Here is the link to the amazon website for this book http://www.amazon.com/Lords-Strategy-Intellectual-History-Corporate/dp/1591397820/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326330950&sr=8-1
very engrossing, goes thru the history of all the strategy tools developed since the 60s. gives a good perspective on how all these tools got developed, stories of consulting war along the way. All those frameworks taught in the MBA school suddenly become much more contextual - the 7Ss, growth share matrix, five forces. It is an unbiased treatment I would say, trashes a lot of consulting cos and academics along the way. All these consultants pushed all these frameworks as magic bullets to grow cos and the results are spotty. The frameworks provide a way to understand what is happening in the competitive environment but that doesn't automatically provide a way to act to your advantage. It all depends how the info from the framework can be used to a company's advantage and execution is always a problem. I wish I had this book when I went to the MBA school, would have given me the context to understand all the strategy tools that were taught in the courses. The book was only published in 2010, so impossible for me to have had this book then.
very engrossing, goes thru the history of all the strategy tools developed since the 60s. gives a good perspective on how all these tools got developed, stories of consulting war along the way. All those frameworks taught in the MBA school suddenly become much more contextual - the 7Ss, growth share matrix, five forces. It is an unbiased treatment I would say, trashes a lot of consulting cos and academics along the way. All these consultants pushed all these frameworks as magic bullets to grow cos and the results are spotty. The frameworks provide a way to understand what is happening in the competitive environment but that doesn't automatically provide a way to act to your advantage. It all depends how the info from the framework can be used to a company's advantage and execution is always a problem. I wish I had this book when I went to the MBA school, would have given me the context to understand all the strategy tools that were taught in the courses. The book was only published in 2010, so impossible for me to have had this book then.
