Cynthia Montgomery

YOU’RE ABOUT TO get a revisionist view of strategy. It’s not that what you’ve learned is incorrect. It’s that it’s incomplete.

Strategy is a fundamental course at nearly every business school in the world.

was this experience, particularly a five-year stint in Harvard’s Entrepreneur, Owner, President program (EOP), that inspired this book.1

Fifty years ago strategy was taught as part of the general management curriculum in most business schools.

In the academy as well as in practice, it was identified as the most important duty of the president—the person with overarching responsibility for setting a company’s course and seeing the journey through. This vital role encompassed both formulation and implementation: thinking and doing combined.

Strategy in many ways became the bailiwick of specialists—legions of MBAs and strategy consultants, armed with frameworks, techniques, and data—eager to help managers analyze their industries or position their firms for strategic advantage. In truth, they had a lot to offer.

new” field of strategy.

While countless books have been written

about strategy in the last thirty years, virtually nothing has been written about the strategist and what this vital role requires of the person who shoulders it.

all good intentions, we had backed strategy into a narrow corner and reduced it to a left-brain exercise.