What Good Strategy/Bad Strategy Taught Me About Execution Discipline

Richard Rumelt's book reframes strategy as diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action. The application to my own work: strategy without execution discipline is just a wish.

The Kernel of Good Strategy

Rumelt argues good strategy has three parts: a diagnosis of the challenge, a guiding policy for dealing with it, and coherent action. Most "strategies" skip the diagnosis and jump to action—or worse, to vague aspirations.

What I Changed

Before reading the book, I tended to conflate goals with strategy. "Increase revenue" is a goal. Strategy is: *Given our constraints and the market, here's how we'll get there."

I now force a diagnosis step: What is the real problem? What's blocking us? Only then do I consider policy and action.

Execution Discipline

Rumelt's emphasis on coherent action means: every action should support the guiding policy. If it doesn't, cut it. This is execution discipline—saying no to work that doesn't align.

Takeaway

The book didn't give me a new strategy. It gave me a framework to evaluate whether my strategy was actually a strategy—and whether my execution was coherent with it.