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by Paul Leinwand
Premium summary · Opens in the app · 30 min read
Every year, companies around the world spend billions of dollars on strategy. They hire consultants, hold offsite retreats, craft vision statements, and produce thick decks filled with market analyses and growth projections. Leaders stand before their organizations and announce bold ambitions: we will become the market leader, we will transform our customer experience, we will innovate faster than anyone else.
**Author:** Paul Leinwand
**Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes
**What You'll Learn:**
- Why most companies fail to execute their strategies and how to close the gap - How to build a coherent identity that guides every decision - How to identify and develop the few capabilities that truly differentiate you - How to align culture, costs, and innovation with your strategic intent - How to lead in a way that makes strategy and execution inseparable
**Who This Book Is For:**
This book is for leaders who are tired of grand strategic plans that never materialize. It is for executives who sense their organization is drifting, spending energy on too many priorities, and failing to deliver on its promises. It is for managers who want to understand why some companies consistently outperform while others with similar resources stagnate. If you have ever felt the frustration of a strategy that looks brilliant on paper but falls apart in practice, this book will show you a different path.
Every year, companies around the world spend billions of dollars on strategy. They hire consultants, hold offsite retreats, craft vision statements, and produce thick decks filled with market analyses and growth projections. Leaders stand before their organizations and announce bold ambitions: we will become the market leader, we will transform our customer experience, we will innovate faster than anyone else. And then, in most cases, very little changes. The strategy documents get filed away. The initiatives lose momentum. The day-to-day operations continue exactly as they did before. A year later, the company commissions another strategy review, and the cycle repeats. This is the strategy-to-execution gap, and it is one of the most persistent and costly problems in business. The gap is not a secret. Leaders know it exists. They feel it in their bones. They see the disconnect between what they say they want to achieve and what their organizations actually do. They watch resources flow to legacy priorities while new initiatives starve. They observe talented people being pulled in a dozen directions, none of them aligned with the stated strategy. They sense the cynicism that grows when employees hear another announcement about transformation while their daily work remains unchanged. Why does this happen? The conventional explanation is that execution is hard, that people resist change, that culture eats strategy for breakfast. These explanations contain truth, but they miss the deeper issue. The problem is not that execution is difficult. The problem is that most strategies are not designed to be executed in the first place. Think about how most strategies are created. A team analyzes markets, identifies opportunities, and sets financial targets. They choose a direction based on where the growth seems to be.…
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Get the complete summary in the appClose the strategy-to-execution gap by building coherence between value proposition, capabilities, and portfolio.
Commit to a clear, differentiated identity that guides every decision.
Focus on three to six truly distinctive capabilities and invest heavily in them.
Use culture as a strategic asset by reinforcing behaviors that support strategy.
Cut costs strategically by investing in differentiating capabilities and eliminating waste.
Innovate from your capabilities, extending what you do well into new opportunities.
"Strategy That Works" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around business, management, leadership, especially themes like close the strategy-to-execution gap by building coherence between value proposition, capabilities, and portfolio; commit to a clear, differentiated identity that guides every decision. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Motivated to help readers with "The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, Paul Leinwand wrote “Strategy That Works” to package those ideas for a fast, focused read. In “Strategy That Works”, Paul Leinwand focuses on "The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short. Through “Strategy That Works”, Paul Leinwand distills the core ideas on business into lessons readers can absorb in a single short sitting. Rea…
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