Your Strategy Needs a Strategy
How to Choose and Execute the Right Approach

 Main Tools & Concepts

• History of Strategy analysis
• Strategy Palette

Overview:
This book primarily challenges readers to rethink whether they have adopted the right approach to strategy.  The authors initial insight is that many organisations adopt what they call a classical approach to strategy, without really considering if that is the best approach given the nature of the business, industry and wider context in which they operate. 

The authors main insight is that there are five different archetypal approaches to strategy, which they go on to explain in greater detail.  They also provide a diagnostic tool - the Strategy Palette, which helps readers understand which approach to strategy is best for their own business. 

Authors	​Martin Reeves, Knut Haanaes, Janmejaya Sinha
Publisher	Harvard Business Review Press
Date	2015
Amazon (A)*	​amzn.to/39lQ9hA
​Author's Website​	www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/collections/your-strategy-needs-strategy/intro
HBR.org Article	​​https://hbr.org/2012/09/your-strategy-needs-a-strategy%E2%80%8B

Context within the 6 Step Strategy Framework

The Strategy Palette asks questions regarding the unpredictability, maleablility and harshness of an organistions core markets and the wider operating environment or context. 

These questions may be answered first within the 6-Step Strategy Framework by using other tools to initially analyse the market environment, wider context, and the degree of certainty by which key numbers might be forecast over time. 

​Having done that, the strategy palette is then a good tool to use to check if the subsequent approach to strategy that you choose is appropraite or not. 

Review:
by Huw Griffiths  10th Jan 2021

​In introducing this book, the authors start off with a brief review of strategy tools over the last half century which from my perspective builds on observations that I had heard several years earlier expressed by Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy/Bad Strategy.  In Your Strategy Needs a Strategy, the authors go deeper into the analysis of this observation by identifying and classifying what they deem to be over 80 significant strategic frameworks developed over the last 50+ years.

​For those of you who have used quite a few strategy tools in the past, this analysis may be of interest.  The other useful observation made by the authors is that in their view many “classical” strategy tools assume a relatively stable and predictable business environment, which may make them less useful in today’s more volatile business environments. 

Whilst I agree with this point when the tools are used in their original form, they may be less useful today than in the past, I have also found that some classical tools can be given a new lease of life by adding in the dimensions of time which I go into in the 6 Step Strategy Framework. 

The central concept of this book is what the authors call "The Strategy Palette", a box matrix model which identifies 4 core approaches to strategy along with a 5th "renewal" option for organisations that are focussed on restructuring for survival or in response to disruptive change.  The 3 axis or dimensions of the matrix help readers identify which approach is most relevant to their own organisation. 

In my experience, the Strategy Palette is a useful concept in organisations which currently adopt the classical approach to strategy when really their circumstances suggest that they should be taking a different approach.  I believe the authors are right to claim that many organisations adopt a classical approach to strategy, which often involves an annual strategic planning exercise, without really questioning whether that is the best approach for them to take.  

The Strategy Palette can therefore be used as a quick and useful diagnostic tool, which if it then shows you that you may be using the wrong approach, can then introduce you to the other archetypal approaches that the authors have identified. 

If you are concerned that your organisation is not taking the right approach to strategy, then this book is worth a read.  The BCG website set up for this book also has some useful resources on it (see the side table above). 

Reference 2x images above: ​www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/collections/your-strategy-needs-strategy/intro

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Other Related Material

Material	Relevance
Good Strategy Bad Strategy	Useful book to read before Your Strategy Needs a Strategy if you are concerned about the quality of your current strategy or your approach to developing strategy
The Big Lie of Strategic Planning	A classic 2014 article from Roger L. Martin,published in the Harvard Business Review which challenges the othen unquesitoned practice of Strategic Planning in many organisations.