Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

Thinking strategically is what separates managers and leaders. Learn the fundamentals about how to create winning strategy and lead your team to deliver it. From understanding what strategy can do for you, through to creating a strategy and engaging others with strategy, this book offers practical guidance and expert tips. It is peppered with punchy, memorable examples from real leaders winning (and losing) with real world strategies. It can be read as a whole or you can dip into the easy-to-read, bite-size sections as and when you need to deal with a particular issue. The structure has been specially designed to make sections quick and easy to use – you’ll find yourself referring back to them again and again.

How to close the gap between strategy and execution Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don’t have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego. These companies: • Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities • Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others • Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it • Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board • Shape the future instead of reacting to it Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Learn to unlock the potential of your employees and colleagues with this definitive resource for people management People Strategy: How to Invest in People and Make Culture Your Competitive Advantage provides readers with a powerful framework in which to develop high-performing teams, increase employee motivation, and use data to build an inviting and effective company culture. Author Jack Altman, cofounder and CEO of Lattice, an award-winning HR and performance management platform, shows you how to: Establish the values that will form the bedrock of your organization Develop feedback processes that help employees feel heard, supported, and equipped to succeed Monitor the breadth and depth of employee engagement in your company Use the data and insights created by your People Strategy to drive business results Perfect for executives, managers, and human resource professionals, People Strategy also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone with even an interest in how to develop, nurture, and unlock the potential of their employees and colleagues.

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013 In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives. The range of Freedman's narrative is extraordinary, moving from the surprisingly advanced strategy practiced in primate groups, to the opposing strategies of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad, the strategic advice of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, the great military innovations of Baron Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, the grounding of revolutionary strategy in class struggles by Marx, the insights into corporate strategy found in Peter Drucker and Alfred Sloan, and the contributions of the leading social scientists working on strategy today. The core issue at the heart of strategy, the author notes, is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one's control. Time and again, Freedman demonstrates that the inherent unpredictability of this environment-subject to chance events, the efforts of opponents, the missteps of friends-provides strategy with its challenge and its drama. Armies or corporations or nations rarely move from one predictable state of affairs to another, but instead feel their way through a series of states, each one not quite what was anticipated, requiring a reappraisal of the original strategy, including its ultimate objective. Thus the picture of strategy that emerges in this book is one that is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting point, not the end point. A brilliant overview of the most prominent strategic theories in history, from David's use of deception against Goliath, to the modern use of game theory in economics, this masterful volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.