I agree with O'Toole that custom and comfort are impediments to change. However, it is important to recognize … - Richard P. Rumelt

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All Rhodes Scholars had a great future in their past.

Richard P. Rumelt

I agree with O'Toole that custom and comfort are impediments to change. However, it is important to recognize that resistance to change is logical as well. The new "change masters" literature seems to take change as the norm. It isn't. Humans naturally see change as risky because it is risky, just as mutations in genes are mostly destructive. You would not want to go to work were everything changed every week! The phone system, the office assignments, who reports to who, and the whole set of job expectations.

Everything, Expectations, Important, Office, Set

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Change is difficult and it takes time. It is hard for people to change their own behavior, much less that of others. Change programs normally address attitudes, ideas, and rewards. But the behaviors of people in organizations are also strongly shaped by habits, routines, and social norms. Real change requires new power relationships, new work routines and new habits, not just intent.

Attitude, Ideas, Intent, People, Real

A good strategy is not always successful, but even an "inappropriate" strategy may be an actual strategy. A "bad strategy" is one that doesn't even try to address an important challenge. Instead, it speaks of aspirations, visions of the future, lays out performance goals, or simply lists a bunch of unconnected actions.

Actions, Challenges, Goal, Lays, Performance, Successful

As I worked to explain how to avoid bad strategy, I began to see that one cannot really evaluate or criticize a strategy unless there is a fairly clear statement of the problem the strategy is trying to solve.

Avoid, Bad, Criticize, Problem, Strategy, Trying

The single most damaging misconception about strategy is that it is a set of financial performance goals. The so-called "strategies" created by many managements are nothing more than three-to-five year financial performance forecasts. They are then labeled "strategy" and shipped off to the board of directors which goes through the motions of discussing how big the numbers are. Strategy is not your aspirations. Strategy is concerned with how you will arrange your actions and resources to punch through the challenges you face.

Action, Aspirations, Challenges, Created, Damaging, Goal

The US needs military
defense, economic, and social strategies. A medium-sized business, by contrast, is normally best off focusing its efforts on a single crucial objective.

Business, Effort, Military, Objective, Single, Strategy