Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters

by Richard P. Rumelt

the end of two years, Denton’s gain to operating had risen from $100,000 to more than $5 million and its accounting profit had doubled. About one-half of the increase came from dropping five weak outlets and the other half from a best-practices program. None of this improvement came from a deep entrepreneurial insight or from innovation. It was all just management—just undoing the accumulated clutter and waste from years of entropy at work. Planning and planting a garden is always more interesting and stimulating than weeding it, but without constant weeding and maintenance the pattern that defines a garden—the imposition of a special order on nature—fades away and disappears.