The Trouble with Strategy: The brutal reality of why business strategy doesn't work and what to do about it - Paperback

by Kim Warren (Author)

This book describes how strategic management of many businesses is badly done, and why this problem has persisted for many decades. It explains that the field of strategy is unprofessional and badly flawed, having poor theory and few useful, reliable principles, leaving management with only little to help them do strategy well. The book ends by suggesting how setting professional standards for strategy would help, and might be done. Kim speaks with knowledge of corporate strategy, having served as strategy director with Whitbread PLC, and having taught strategy on MBA and Executive programs at London Business School. He now writes, advises and develops courses on Strategy Dynamics to spread this powerful solution for many of the field's problems. He has an MBA and PhD from London University and is author of Strategic Management Dynamics, published by Wiley. Kim says "I long ago lost patience with the poor strategy methods currently available and am also increasingly angered by the constant strategy mistakes. When people mess up strategy, they mess up your life, whether you are an employee, a customer, have a pension, or are just a regular citizen. There are outstanding exceptions - skilled and thoughtful executives, consultants with sophisticated and valuable knowledge, and professors who are awesome thinkers and educators - but they are the exceptions! So I take a scalpel to the practice and principles of strategy to figure out exactly what the problems are, where they came from and why, and how they might be fixed."

Author Biography

Kim speaks with knowledge of corporate strategy, having served as strategy director with Whitbread PLC, and having taught strategy on MBA and Executive programs at London Business School. He now writes, advises and develops courses on Strategy Dynamics to spread this powerful solution for many of the field's problems. He has an MBA and PhD from London University and is author of Strategic Management Dynamics, published by Wiley. Kim is dedicated to providing professional strategy skills to executives and consultants at all levels. Collaborations with leading consulting firms extend the application of Strategy Dynamics principles, notably in corporate strategy, equity analysis, technological disruption and due-diligence for M&A and private equity deals. Consulting relationships enhance and develop the approach, recent examples including Microsoft Inc, Visa International, BT plc, Barclays Bank, PWC and Deloitte, as well as public sector and voluntary organisations. Kim has an engineering background, an MBA and PhD from the London Business School. his early career was spent in the oil and petrochemicals industry. In his corporate career, he designed the strategy to transform a threatened beer company into the powerful force in restaurant and hotel retailing that is Whitbread plc today. he then taught strategy to MBAs and executives at London Business School for several years before losing patience with the poor strategy methods available, and developing a stronger and more useful approach; Strategy Dynamics.