With its cover graced by the image of a presumably hungry shark, Strategy Bites Back is actually a friendly collection of essays and observations on some of the elements of strategy that intimidate people the most. Even readers who fail to appreciate all of the humor will undoubtedly enjoy paging through the book as a refreshing antidote to the footnote-laden tomes that usually make up the field.
The three authors have done a fine job of pulling together and reprinting short reflections on strategy by thinkers as diverse as Jack Welch, Michael Porter, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mao Tse Tung, Gary Hamel, and Hans Christian Andersen. (Mozart, not known as a business strategist, described how he envisioned a symphony as it took shape: "All the inventing and making goes on in me as in a beautiful strong dream.") The book is also interspersed with short, punchy essays by the authors on a variety of topics: planning, flexibility, the strategy launch, and so on.
In short, we think the book is meaty enough to be serious yet also pleasantly entertaining, though perhaps not for beach reading.
Mintzberg is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University, Ahlstrand is a professor of management at Trent University in Ontario, and Lampel teaches at Cass Business School, City University, London.
Table of Contents:
- What's in a word?
- Swoted by strategy
- Strategy carefully
- Figuring strategy
- A vision of strategy
- Inside the strategist's head
- Strategy a step at a time
- Strategy with the gloves off and the halo on
- Final food for thought