Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

by Richard P. Rumelt

Then the listener realizes that David discarded the armor because it would only slow him down; had he come close enough to receive a blow from the giant, bronze armor would not have saved him. Finally, when the stone strikes Goliath’s forehead, the listener suddenly discovers a critical weakness—Goliath’s armor didn’t cover this vital area. David’s weapon delivered force with precision over a distance, neutering Goliath’s supposed advantages of size and strength. The story teaches us that our preconceived ideas of strength and weakness may be unsound. It is the victory of apparent weakness over apparent strength that gives this tale its bite. More than the deft wielding of power, the listener experiences the actual discovery of power in a situation—the creation or revelation of a decisive asymmetry. How someone can see what others have not, or what they have ignored, and thereby discover a pivotal objective and create an advantage, lies at the very edge of our understanding, something glimpsed only out of the corner of our minds. Not every good strategy draws on this kind of insight, but those that do generate the extra kick that separates “ordinary excellence” from the extraordinary.