253: Richard Rumelt, How to solve the crux

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 253, an episode with Emeritus Professor at UCLA Anderson, Richard Rumelt.

Get Richard’s book here: https://amzn.to/3OrNfuK

In this episode, Richard iterated the real meaning of strategy, which many companies today confuse with a list of their goals and ambitions. Strategy is problem-solving – a clever way of dealing with a challenge, opponent, or problem. It also involves selecting which battle you fight because you cannot fight them all. As a great strategist, you need to select battles that you can win. 

Richard also explained the crux or the biggest challenge that companies need to identify, emphasize, and concentrate their resources on until it is fixed or solved. As Richard mentioned in this episode, “the primary thing about strategy is that it is about a concentration of resources. It is about focus.”

Richard Rumelt received his doctorate from the Harvard Business School in 1972, having previously earned a Master of Science in electrical engineering from UC Berkeley. He worked as a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories and served on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. He joined the UCLA faculty in 1976. He also served as a faculty at INSEAD, France for three years. At INSEAD, Rumelt headed the Corporate Renewal Initiative, a research-intervention center devoted to the study and practice of corporate transformation.

Rumelt was president of the Strategic Management Society from 1995 to 1998. He received the Irwin Prize for his book Strategy, Structure, and Economic Performance. In 1997, he was appointed Telecom Italia Strategy Fellow, a position he held until April 2000. He has won teaching awards at UCLA and received a best paper prize in 1997 from the Strategic Management Journal.

Get Richard’s book here:

The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists, Richard Rumelt: https://amzn.to/3OrNfuK

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