Review: The Art of the Strategist

Copyright © 2004 by Don Blohowiak
Don@LeadWell.com   www.LeadWell.com

Strategy (like leadership) might well be typified in the same way Mark Twain described the weather: Everybody's talking about it, no one is doing anything about it.

While there is already a bountiful harvest of materials covering the strategy landscape, retired Air Force Major General William A. Cohen, Ph.D., has made a valuable, highly readable, and practical addition to the strategist's arsenal in his book, The Art of the Strategist: 10 Essential Principles for Leading Your Company to Victory.

Perhaps surprisingly, General Cohen is an avid contrarian; very early in the book he rightfully takes on the silly notion of likening business to war. (A topic I also wrote about in 1996.) And he rails against the folly of trying to divine strategy from either statistical analysis or simplistic market stratification.

While there are fascinating accounts of military history in this general's book, they appear alongside equally well-researched tales from the contemporary business world (with some personal and historical political tales as well). The anecdotes serve to illustrate instructive strategic brilliance and stupidity, not as blueprints of strategies to imitate.

As Cohen relates early in the book, he "researched the greatest strategists and strategic thinkers of the millenia [including] strategists from both East and West over a period spanning more than 7,000 years of recorded history, in almost every country on earth...."

Well, the "almost every country on earth" part does seem to be a stretch, but beyond this hyperbole the book is well grounded in a wide variety of useful examples from many fields, places and times.

Deceptive Simplicity

As I remind my own clients, the critical part of strategy is to do strategic thinking before undertaking strategic planning. And Dr. Cohen's ten universal principles prime the strategic thinking pump.

Admittedly, a quick skimming of these principles might well elicit a ho-hum response. After all, 'Keep Things Simple' and 'Exploit Your Success' just don't scream "ground breaking." But to dismiss these principles as either obvious or old hat would be a mistake.

As with most clearly stated principles, Cohen's are easy to grasp superficially, more difficult to appreciate at a deeper level of meaning, and far more challenging to actually put into faithful practice.

Fortunately, Cohen puts substantial meat on these little bones. He offers bountiful food for thought in a book that is engaging, frank, wide ranging and highly digestible.

Get this book to gain valuable and useful against-the-norm insights into forming and applying strategy.

Don Blohowiak
author, Strategy Clarified And Simplified

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Copyright © 2005, Don Blohowiak, Lead Well Institute

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