2 min read
Good Strategy Bad Strategy
When a plan has room for every good idea, the harder question is what difficulty it is actually trying to change.
One-Page Story
At the first meeting in May, the league voted to keep every team. There were twelve now, including a new under-six group, a women’s evening team, and a Saturday side made up of people who worked shifts. The old court behind the leisure centre had survived another winter, or seemed to have. The schedule was crowded but possible.
Then the drains failed.
After rain, water rose through cracks near the north basket and stayed for days. By June, three fixtures had been cancelled. By July, the under-six group was sharing half an indoor court with a badminton club. The Saturday side was asked to play at seven, then told the caretaker could not open the building before eight.
At each meeting, someone brought a new answer. Sell raffle tickets. Ask the council for lights. Recruit another coach. Run a summer tournament. The ideas filled the whiteboard until there was no clear place to write last week’s score.
In August, the women’s team said they would leave if their Tuesday slot moved again. The under-six coach said children could not keep practising in a space with no toilets nearby. The Saturday captain said his players had stopped replying.
“We can’t keep everyone happy,” said Leila, who kept the fixtures.
No one disagreed. They had said the opposite for months.
The treasurer crossed out the tournament. It would cost too much to hire an alternative court for one weekend. The coach objected that it was the only thing the children had been promised. The Saturday captain asked why his team should lose a season for a group that had joined in May.
By the end, they had made one decision and postponed three. The Saturday side would not be registered for autumn. The money saved would buy two fixed indoor sessions each week. It did not repair the outdoor court.
When the minutes arrived, Leila had written: Court access is the immediate constraint. Underneath, she had listed the teams that would lose their place.
Why This Book Matters
Good Strategy Bad Strategy gives readers a durable distinction between strategy and its substitutes: ambition, slogans, broad goals, and lists of desirable outcomes. Richard Rumelt brings attention back to the consequential challenge a situation presents, rather than treating intention as direction.
Its lasting value is the connection it draws between diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coordinated action. The book does not offer a formula for selecting a single winner from a list; it makes the judgment, concentration, and foregone options within a real strategy harder to avoid.
Should You Read It?
Read it if...
- You are facing a consequential challenge with competing demands and want to understand how diagnosis can make action coherent rather than merely busy.
- You want a clear, idea-led account of strategy that examines trade-offs, concentration of effort, and the difference between a response and a wish.
Skip it if...
- You want a step-by-step business-plan template, OKR or KPI system, or a tactical growth-hack playbook.
- You are looking primarily for motivational management advice, leadership inspiration, or a quick productivity method.
Try This Today
Name the difficulty before the ideas
Choose one stalled project, team, or problem. Before listing solutions, write one sentence naming the difficulty that is actually preventing progress. Keep it provisional, then notice which familiar ideas address that difficulty and which merely add activity.