The Art of What Works: How Great Leaders Adapt Competitive Strategies to Their Advantage

Terrific book that captures the reality of how strategy works. Starting with a vision and working to create it is not the art of what works. It is a non starter. Strategy has always struggled to capture how great strategy really happens and more importantly how a business or individual can duplicate it. Standing on the shoulders of giants, Duggan has captured this and given enormous insight to those seeking to improve their ability develop strategy, evaluate strategy or profit from great strategy. This discipline is essential. Highly recommended.

William Duggan's, "The Art of What Works..." has become one of the guiding principles by which our company bases its innovations. The other principles of our business tripod are: Albert Humphrey's "SWOT" analysis and Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema's, "The Discipline of Market Leaders." It is essential to take these three bodies of works collectively, if you are to build a 21st Century enterprise. "The Art of What Works" provides the foundational principles by which contemporary "break-throughs" are made. Duggan's ideas work within any industry. Take for example, the musician "Prince". While his music is defined as transformational, his musical success is laid by the prior success and styling of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and Sly Stone. Now, Duggan's doesn't provide the myriad of examples by which using past contributions to tweak contemporary innovations, but you begin to see the patterns of possibilities by laying his concept within any social phenomenon. The great contributors, past and present, used "hybrid' approaches towards achievement, which lays bear the idea of "pure" innovation within any industry. Nothing is really "new' nor created in a vacuum. Duggan's analysis of success trumps those of Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie, because it's based on historic or factual reality over metaphysics. The notion, "It is what it is" takes precedent over theories that fail to look behind what is qualifiable and quantifiable. Edward Brown Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute [...]

I really liked the author's "Napoleon's Glance" book so I picked this up too. In my opinion this book is quietly revolutionary about how change in society happens and it is providing new insight into the concept of "expert intuition". It is important new reading for anyone interested in business, especially consultants like myself in business strategy. I used to work in nonprofits too and it is very important for people in that world as well. It is totally different style of thinking that Michael Porter's stuff on strategy, and much more useful!!