Don't Jump to Solutions: Thirteen Delusions That Undermine Strategic Thinking (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) - Hardcover

Rouse, William B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 078790998X ISBN 13: 9780787909987

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 1998

Synopsis

Strategic planning expert William Rouse cuts to the heart of the most common causes of failed business plans and strategies and shows how to overcome them. He encourages strategic thinkers and planners to spend much more time analyzing a situation instead of jumping to ready solutions. The tone is tongue-in-cheek, but the keen observations and sage advice Rouse offers aptly address a serious subject. It's a fast-track primer in critical thinking and evaluation planners and managers at every level can use to approach their work more effectively.

About this title

About the Author

WILLIAM B. ROUSE is chief executive officer of Enterprise Support Systems, an Atlanta-based software company that produces a wide range of software systems and tools. An educator and author of several books--including Start Where You Are (Jossey-Bass, 1996)--he is also an experienced consultant who helps companies develop and implement strategic plans. He lives in Dunwoody, Georgia.

From the Back Cover

Where do companies go wrong when creating strategic plans? Often, the problem isn't with the plan itself, but the assumptions on which the plan is built. Here, strategic planning expert William Rouse cuts to the heart of the most common causes of failed business plans and strategies and shows how to overcome them. The tone is tongue-in-cheek, but the keen observations and sage advice Rouse offers aptly address a serious subject. It's a fast-track primer in critical thinking and evaluation that strategic planners and managers at every level can use to approach their work more effectively.

From the Inside Flap

Reengineering initiatives at last behind them, many companies are again looking boldly to the future, devising strategic plans they hope will ensure growth, prosperity, and a more certain tomorrow. The plans will appear sound--brilliant, even--but many will be fatally flawed; they will hinge on the same set of false assumptions that persistently lead the most experienced strategic thinkers astray. So just what might those assumptions be?According to strategic planning expert Bill Rouse, those false assumptions or "delusions" are generally rooted in the company credo "That's the way we do things around here." They are often invisible, but must be found out before successful planning can take place.Writing with wit and wisdom, Rouse exposes thirteen delusions that commonly derail strategic thinking. He encourages strategic thinkers and planners to spend much more time analyzing a situation instead of jumping to ready solutions. Strategists must learn to uncover delusions and identify the real business challenges that lie between a company and its goals, and Rouse gives them the means to do so.In Don't Jump to Solutions, the author mines his extensive experience as a consultant, university professor, and CEO of his own firm to present companies with a guide they can use to forge strategic plans that deliver in practice what they promise on paper. Readers will discover four rules they can follow to successful strategic planning. They will also find ninety-four central principles and seventy key questions planners and managers can use to move beyond delusions to sound strategic thinking and, ultimately, to long-term success.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 078790998X
• ISBN 13: 9780787909987
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208