THE CRUX

Lessons in strategic planning.

Business strategist Rumelt takes his guiding metaphor from rock climbing: Boulders are “problems,” and the solution involves attacking the “toughest part,” or “the crux.” “You cannot get up with just strength and ambition,” writes the author. “You have to solve the puzzle of the crux and have the courage to make delicate moves almost two stories above the ground.” It’s a useful concept, though Rumelt works it a little too hard and then sets it aside for more familiar sloganeering on the art of strategizing. “To be a strategist you will need persistence because it is so tempting to grab at the first glimmer of a pathway through a thicket of issues,” he writes. “To be a strategist you have to take responsibility for external challenges, but also for the health of the organization itself.” Some case studies are quite to the point. For example, the author observes that when Elon Musk began piecing together his SpaceX endeavor, he centered on the crux of designing a “Honda Civic,” in Musk’s phrasing, of a rocket that could haul people to far-distant destinations and then come back to Earth for another load. Some of Rumelt’s prescriptions are common-sensical and not especially original: If you pick more than a few priorities in your planning, for instance, you run the risk of diluting the entire enterprise. Even so, those case studies do the heavy lifting in making useful points, as when the author analyzes how Netflix developed a workable plan for dominating the streaming market. Rumelt also dissects what happens when policies, values, and guiding ideologies come into conflict (the short answer: You get the Vietnam War) and when too many people are involved in creating a workable plan. As he writes, “the quality of strategy work is limited by the amount of honesty and integrity in the system.”

Of some interest to business readers, blending exhortation with pointed case studies.