Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick Quotes

“Presenters in strategy meetings often seem to not seek a conversation at all. Instead, they appear to deflect as many questions as they can, saying they are “trying to get through the materials.” They want to move to the last page of the presentation as smoothly as possible and then get that all-important “yes” to the plan, that “yes” to the resource request, that “yes” to have a shot at the next promotion. A successful meeting is deemed to be one with little friction and maximum good feelings.”
― Chris Bradley, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds

“For most businesses, the best predictor of next year’s budget is still this year’s budget, plus or minus a few percent, of course.”
― Chris Bradley, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds

“Perhaps the most widely read piece of research that McKinsey has published in the past decade showed that companies that rapidly re-allocate capital to new growth businesses outperform those that take a steady-state approach.21 Yet, the social side of strategy is such that companies still tend to take what is known as a “peanut butter” approach—spreading a thin layer of resources smoothly across the whole enterprise, even though it’s clear that opportunities are far greater in some areas than in others.”
― Chris Bradley, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds

“Bringing about change in the corporations of today reminds us of an attempt to move an octopus, when one leg of the octopus is totally committed to going to the next rock but the other seven remain completely committed to holding on to the rock they’re already grasping.”
― Chris Bradley, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds

“It turns out that the more we know, the more dangerous we are. The inside view reigns. We convince ourselves that we have a winning plan this year even though we continue doing pretty much what we’ve always done.”
― Chris Bradley, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds

“When changing times demand a really big shift in strategy, this inside view turns out to be even more of a problem. It’s an inside view of the wrong world, and you are caught blindsided. Rather than an ever-more-precise inside view, strategy needs an “outside view,” where data about the thousands of other experiences by other executives and their companies in other strategy rooms are brought into your own strategy room to shape the discussion. Why benchmark just your operational KPIs when you could have an equally compelling, objective reference point for your strategy? Why not calibrate how good your strategy really is against a broad set of comparative data?”
― Chris Bradley, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds