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[Page 2] YOUR STRATEGY NEEDS A STRATEGY [Page 3] HA RV A RD BUSI N ESS REV I EW PRESS BOST ON , MA SSA CHUSET T S [Page 4] HBR Press Quantity Sales Discounts Harvard Business Review Press titles are available at significant quantity discounts when purchased in bulk for client gifts, sales promotions, and premiums. Special editions, including books with corporate logos, customized covers, and letters from the company or CEO printed in the front matter, as well as excerpts of existing books, can also be created in large quantities for special needs. For details and discount information for both print and ebook formats, contact booksales@harvardbusiness.org, tel. 800-988-0886, or www.hbr.org/bulksales. Copyright 2015 The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu, or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163. The web addresses referenced in this book were live and correct at the time of the book’s publication but may be subject to change. Cataloging-in-Publication data is forthcoming. ISBN: 978-1-62527-586-8 eISBN: 978-1-62527-587-5 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives Z39.48-1992. [Page 5] CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 Introduction CHAPTER 2 Classical: Be Big CHAPTER 3 Adaptive: Be Fast CHAPTER 4 Visionary: Be First CHAPTER 5 Shaping: Be the Orchestrator CHAPTER 6 Renewal: Be Viable CHAPTER 7 Ambidexterity: Be Polychromatic CHAPTER 8 Lessons for Leaders: Be the Animator EPILOGUE Personally Mastering the Strategy Palette Appendix A: Self-Assessment: What Is Your Approach to [Page 6] Strategy? Appendix B: Further Reading Appendix C: Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) Simulation Model Notes Index Acknowledgments About the Authors [Page 7] YOUR STRATEGY NEEDS A STRATEGY [Page 8] CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Your Strategy Needs a Strategy How to Select and Execute the Right Approach to Strategy Strategy is a means to an end: favorable business outcomes. When we think about strategy, we tend to think about planning: study your situation, define a goal, and draw up a step-by-step path to get there. For a long time, planning was the dominant approach in business strategy—in both the boardroom and the classroom. But effective business strategy has never really consisted of just this one approach. The multidecade plans that oil companies make would feel inappropriate to the CEO of a software firm that faces new products and competitors every day and that therefore adopts a more fluid and opportunistic approach to strategy. Neither would such long-term plans feel natural to an entrepreneur creating and bringing a new product or business model to market. What is this broader set of ways in which we can