Ebook: The art of what works: how success really happens

Defining the best strategic approach for your business or a solution to a particular problem need not come from scratch. You can borrow ideas from someone else and make them your own. In fact, from Napoleon to Jack Welch, the greatest leaders and the most successful businesses have been doing just that for centuries. While most guides on strategy argue for a particular plan or system to ensure business success, The Art of What Works eschews that approach. Strategy is not one-size-fits-all. Cisco's approach wouldn't work for General Motors. However, some elements of Cisco's approach to business, may be suitable for a particular issue GM is facing. The Art of What Works argues that there are no good strategies or bad strategies - just strategies that work best in a given situation. The trick is to distill and synthesize those elements that are most appropriate to develop new strategies for your business. The Art of What Works provides leaders with a new framework for developing creative strategies. Creative strategy is really very simple.; By learning from experience - your own and others' - you bring to bear new combinations of strategic thinking to any new situation, providing insight from many sources. This kind of thinking allows you to create new strategies through a synthesis of things that worked in the past. As you process all the information you can from various sources, you see a new combination to apply to the current situation. Jack Welch perfected the art of creative strategy. His appropriation and regeneration of Six Sigma is a perfect example. Welch liked what he saw in the Motorola program and applied it to GE, turning it into one of GE's most successful initiatives. The key is to find the strategy that works best for your business at any given point in time, whether based on your own experience or others', whether it worked at one time or whether it didn't. Doing so requires a new way of thinking about strategy. In this insightful, practical guide, author William Duggan lays the groundwork for mastering the art of creative strategy. The result is a winning framework for strategy built on a synthesis of ideas.; In The Art of What Works, readers will learn: How to take direct advantage of expert ideas in business strategy; How to decide on a course of action ... and make appropriate changes along the way; How to help good ideas rise to the top; Strategy isn't rocket science. Through a thoughtful framework and a beautifully simple approach, The Art of What Works offers a way to cut to the chase to find a faster, better path to success.  Read more...