Message to Managers: Your Strategy Is Not What You Say It Is

Photograph by Larry Sultan/Gallerystock
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Adapted from How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon, by Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins

If you study the root causes of business disasters and management missteps, you’ll often find a predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. Many companies’ decision-making systems are designed to steer investments to initiatives that offer the most tangible returns, so companies often favor these and short-change investments in initiatives that are crucial to their long-term strategies.