Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy distinguishes between effective and ineffective strategic thinking, offering a framework for developing and implementing strategy in practice. Rumelt argues that a good strategy is a specific, coherent response to obstacles that harnesses power where it will have the greatest effect. He identifies a tendency to mistake values, buzzwords, slogans, and financial targets for actual strategy, and demonstrates why this represents bad strategy. The book introduces nine sources of power—including leverage and focused growth—presented as practical tools applicable to real-world situations. Rumelt supports his ideas with detailed examples spanning business, nonprofit, and military contexts: Apple and General Motors, the Iraq wars and Afghanistan, Walmart and local markets, Nvidia and Silicon Graphics, the Getty Trust and Los Angeles Unified School District, Cisco Systems and Paccar, Global Crossing, and the 2007–08 financial crisis. Drawing on economics, finance, technology, history, and human behavior, the book addresses fundamental strategic questions with analytical rigor.