Don’t hire an MBA student, become one: The Strategist, by Cynthia Montgomery
Strategy is not a one stop ride, it’s a never ending one.
First of all, it’s worth mentioning that this book is a hidden gem with definitely not even close to the degree of attention it should have. If like me, you read the book with a previous knowledge of Simon Sinek’s Golden circle and his ‘Start With Why’ theory, you will find The Strategist a quite practical, short, but rich journey. The book takes you throughout several cases of companies where having a clear ‘Purpose’ (or ‘Why’, for the Sinek fan), makes the difference between success and failure because of how it permeates into the company’s overall strategy.
Montgomery’s findings are reported in the book from several years teaching a business class in Harvard Business School, and are strongly influenced by Michael Porter’s competitive strategy theory. There’s even an entire section dedicated to the five competitive forces analysis, and an illustration of how properly having them in consideration could have prevented a company in the bathroom fixtures business from floundering in an attempt to enter the furniture industry.
The book makes a whole deal of emphasis on how strategy is not a one time effort but rather a never ending journey where the strategist constantly evaluates both internal and external factors in order to draw competitive landscapes and value propositions that match the company’s grand purpose. This made me think about who that strategist is in the company and how poorly companies seem to understand the true value of having a strategist on their team. Let me elaborate: the strategist needs to be a decision maker in the company, it can’t be just another foot soldier in the base of the organizational pyramid, tasked with drawing endless diagrams and SWOT analysis with no means of actually seeing the strategy throughout execution. The strategist needs to be involved in the decision making as deep as the management is. To a certain extent (and that’s actually what’s happening in the executive HBS course on which Montgomery based this book), the CEO, Chairman or similar position, needs to become the strategist.
Unfortunately, that is not exactly the way it’s being played out in the companies around us. They hire MBA graduates because of a gut feeling that by including someone in the team with a business education, miraculously that person is going to bring some insights to the discussion that probably everyone else would have otherwise missed.
Managers think that having the MBA graduate produce a plethora of charts and diagrams about strategy is the way they should be using that asset. They miss the point that ‘doing strategy’ is not the same as writing a report about some previous events, like a news reporter would. Doing strategy is actually using that stream of strategy charts and diagrams to make actionable calls about the things that happen in the company, measure the results, respond to those results, measure again, contrast with the general strategy (grand purpose or ‘Why’), rinse and repeat. This means that the strategist needs to become a dynamic researcher, who experiments as he builds.
I wish I didn’t have the need to mention Apple, because I feel that every time you bring the iPod or the Macintosh into the conversation, it changes from something feasible, to the realm of impossible feats and super heroes like Iron Man and Steve jobs. That said, please, bare with me, because I’ll bring the conversation back into the real world.
Montgomery spends an entire chapter going about Apple and Jobs career (not surprisingly, as Sinek does too in ‘Start With Why’), and what I found most interesting about it was the fact that it depicted Jobs not as a guy who had it all figured out from the very beginning, but rather as someone who failed not once, but several times. The remarkable thing is, he was brave enough to experiment, fail, and then have the will power to learn from those mistakes to ultimately produce something that didn’t have the same failures as before.
Think about it, that is outstanding. Super Steve Jobs did not have it all figured out all along. He was as human as we are (sure he was, he even died, as we all will), and therefore we too can produce something of high impact, given that we have the commitment to stick with a sense of purpose, and be methodical in our approach to improve.
Final Remarks
Overall, I fount Montgomery’s book quite refreshing. It is light, short and to the point. Filled with interesting anecdotes and facts that will open your eyes to things that sadly we all should know already, but since we don’t, well, just go ahead and read about them.
Thank you for reading and if you found this interesting, don’t hesitate to comment or reach out. I’ve found that a healthy discussion about a topic of our interest is the best way to digest the content.
I’m a Product Manager with a proclivity for web design and programming. I live in Japan and currently help a number of tech startups in AgTech and EdTech get off the ground. Happy to connect on LinkedIn or Instagram. And while you’re at it, here’s my website and YouTube channel as well.
