10 Essential Quotes on Strategy

• The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

• Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity.

• The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change.

• Strategy is about setting yourself apart from the competition. It’s not a matter of being better at what you do – it’s a matter of being different at what you do.

• Finally, strategy must have continuity. It can’t be constantly reinvented.

Michael Porter is an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher. He is the author of 18 books and numerous articles including Competitive Strategy, Competitive Advantage, Competitive Advantage of Nations, and On Competition. The Porter five forces analysis framework for analyzing industries is still used in strategy development and analysis.

• There’s a simple, but oft-neglected lesson here: to sustain success, you have to be willing to abandon things that are no longer successful. Innovation is the only insurance against irrelevance.

• You can’t use an old map to see a new land.

• Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you’re on a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Of course, there are other strategies. You can change riders. You can get a committee to study the dead horse. You can benchmark how other companies ride dead horses. You can declare that it’s cheaper to feed a dead horse. You can harness several dead horses together. But after you’ve tried all these things, you’re still going to have to dismount.

• Your organization can start tweeting, but that won’t change its DNA.

• The goal is not to speculate on what might happen, but to imagine what you can make happen.

Gary Hamel is the originator (with C. K. Prahalad) of the concept of core competencies. He was named to many “top management thinker” lists and Forbes magazine has called him “the world’s leading expert on business strategy”. He has written Competing for the Future, Leading the Revolution, The Future of Management and What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition and Unstoppable Innovation.