Focus: How to Plan Strategy and Improve Execution to Achieve Growth

Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1: Strategy Planning in the Real World
	1.1	 Understanding Strategy Planning
	1.2	 Eight Strategy Stories
	1.3	 Calculating Your Strategy Planning Quotient
	1.4	 Improving Your Strategy Planning Quotient
2: The CEO Perspective on Strategy Planning
	2.1	 Listening to CEOs
	2.2	 One: Lacking a Customer Lens
	2.3	 Two: Informed by Siloed and Bifurcated Research That Misleads
	2.4	 Three: No Meaningful Comparisons
	2.5	 Four: Analysis Paralysis
	2.6	 Five: Lacking a Link Between Strategy and Financial Outcomes
	2.7	 Six: No Meaningful Way to Focus and Sequence Executives’ Effort
	2.8	 Seven: Following Executives’ Personal Preferences to Define Strategy
	2.9	 Eight: No Blueprint for Alignment
	2.10	 Conclusion
3: The Perils and Promise of Strategy Planning
	3.1	 What CEOs Believe
	3.2	 What Senior Executives and Managers Believe
	3.3	 Executives’ Subjective Beliefs and Objective Reality
	3.4	 Three Studies of Executive Beliefs
	3.5	 National Study of Executive Beliefs
	3.6	 FACILITYCO Executives’ Beliefs and Customer Needs
	3.7	 Mitigating Perils and Maximizing Promise
4: The Inspirational Executive: Strategy Planning Through Mission, Vision, and Values
	4.1	 Understanding the Inspirational Approach
	4.2	 Evaluating the Inspirational Approach to Strategy
	4.3	 The Perils of Mission Statements
	4.4	 The Inspirational Approach: Research Evidence
	4.5	 Conclusion
5: The Superhero Executive: Strategy Planning Through Adhocracy
	5.1	 Overemphasizing Exploration
	5.2	 Overemphasizing Innovation
	5.3	 Pioneering Industries
	5.4	 New Research
	5.5	 Conclusion
6: The Analytical Executive: Budget-Based Strategy Planning
	6.1	 Evaluating the Budget-Based Approach
	6.2	 Examining New Evidence
	6.3	 Conclusion
7: Strategy Planning Inhibitors
	7.1	 Inhibitor 1: Confusing Salience with Importance
	7.2	 Inhibitor 2: Intuitive Leaps
	7.3	 Inhibitor 3: Belief in Mythical Numbers
	7.4	 Inhibitor 4: Staying Put
	7.5	 Inhibitor 5: More-Is-Better Thinking
	7.6	 Inhibitor 6: Inwardly Focused and Discordant
	7.7	 Inhibitor 7: Decoupled Measurement and Diffuse Accountability
	7.8	 Conclusion
8: Strategy Planning Enablers
	8.1	 Enabler 1: Chain-link Your Strategy Map
	8.2	 Enabler 2: Know the Give-Get of Each Link
	8.3	 Enabler 3: Achieve More by Doing Less
	8.4	 Enabler 4: Relentlessly Implement the Not-To-Do List
	8.5	 Enabler 5: Flip the Planning Template
	8.6	 Enabler 6: Embed Science in Strategy Planning
	8.7	 Enabler 7: Approach the Planning Process with Humility
	8.8	 Conclusion
9: Exterior, Inc.’s Strategy Success Story
	9.1	 Exterior, Inc.: 2008–2014
	9.2	 Exterior’s Strategy Planning Dilemma: 2014
	9.3	 Rewiring the Strategy Planning Process: 2015
	9.4	 Exterior’s Strategy Enabled Not Inhibited: 2015–2017
	9.5	 Conclusion
10: Increasing the Strategy Planning Quotient
	10.1	 Not All CEOs Are Strategy Leaders
	10.2	 How Can CEOs Increase Their Strategy Planning Quotient?
	10.3	 How Can Senior Executives Increase Their Strategy Planning Quotient?
	10.4	 Review and Refine Your Company’s Strategy Process
	10.5	 Creating a Robust Strategy Planning Framework
	10.6	 Conclusion
Index