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

by Richard P. Rumelt

Listening to Teece’s and Jobs’s imaginary counsel, I am reminded that good strategies are usually “corner solutions.” That is, they emphasize focus over compromise. They focus on one aspect of the situation, not trying to be all things to all people. As Jobs might argue, TiVo could be a much more interesting proposition were it merged with a major platform, providing something more integrated than current DVR offerings. And as Teece might observe, they are already trying to do too many conflicting things, things that put them in competition with their platform customers. Learning from others can be more than simply listening to them, watching them, or reading what they write. When you build your own panel of experts you go one step farther, trying to shape your understanding of their teachings into a virtual personality. When it works, it does so because we humans have built-in software for understanding other humans, software that is more expert at recognizing and recalling personalities than at almost anything else.