New book from Kepner-Tregoe Strategy Consulting:
THE ART & DISCIPLINE OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
by Mike Freedman with Benjamin B. Tregoe

In a corporate landscape marked by economic downturn, rapid changes and uncertainty, managers are struggling to revitalize their businesses and gain competitive advantage. Now more than ever, setting and implementing long term strategy for growth is crucial to an organization's survival.

Global advisors Mike Freedman and Benjamin Tregoe discuss the concepts and processes to help improve a company's strategic performance In their new book, THE ART AND DISCIPLINE OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP (McGraw-Hill Trade; February 2003). While strategic leadership is among the more overused phrases in the corporate lexicon, Freedman and Tregoe first define it as "guiding an organization to establish a framework within which it will make choices to determine its future nature and direction."

The authors argue that too often strategic thought has been reduced to reactive decision making or me-too policies cobbled together. They discuss how managers can overcome the pitfalls of losing focus, shortchanging the time devoted to quality thinking, being distracted by operational and financial minutiae and allowing a weak leadership team to perpetuate the status quo to concentrate on the big picture and set long term goals.

Freedman and Tregoe show why managers require both art and creativity in envisioning the (unknowable) future together with discipline for proper execution to realize their goals. They present a systematic way to think about and act on implementing strategy and introduce a five-phase plan, developed by their consulting firm, Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., that provides a disciplined approach to creating a results-based strategy. It has been used by global organizations that include Hallmark, British Airways, the Bank of Ireland, Lockheed Martin, Corning, the Savoy Group of Hotels, the UK's Labour Party. Examples and case studies are used throughout the book. Whether the need in these organizations was for tweaking the current strategy or forging entirely new product and market categories, THE ART AND DISCIPLINE OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP offers a candid glimpse of how leaders in these organizations grappled with key strategic challenges.

  • Gathering and analysis of strategic intelligence: Explains how to begin the process of assessing the present and likely future trends in markets, competition, technology, regulations, and economic conditions, as well as examining a company's internal variables.
  • Strategy formulation: Discusses how the top team must examine alternative futures and then how to select and create the strategic profile or vision based on Phase 1 outposts. projects will emerge, and tasks must be completed to ensure successful strategy implementation, and a plan needs to be created.
  • Strategy implementation: Shows how several elements affect the success of a well-crafted plan, including the quality of project execution, a major communications effort is needed and broad employee support for how these projects will be clarified, prioritized, resourced, executed and monitored.
  • Strategy monitoring, reviewing and updating: Explains why a strategy must be monitored regularly to ensure its continuing efficacy

THE ART AND DISCIPLINE OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP shows how to model, stimulate, support and reward strategic thinking at all levels of an organization. It is an invaluable resource for managers who want to discard outmoded standards, think the unthinkable and implement a fluid and flexible strategy to drive extraordinary results.

THE AUTHORS ARE AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW.
CONTACT:
In the U.S.: Lydia Rinaldi, 212-904-5393
lydia_rinaldi@mcgraw-hill.com
In the U.K.: Sue Blake Media, 020 8891 2203
sue@sueblakemedia.co.uk