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    The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World
    The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World
    The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World

    Written by Walter Kiechel III

    Narrated by Robertson Dean

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Imagine running a business without a strategy. It would be akin to driving blindfolded, to building a house without a blueprint. Yet just fifty years ago business “plans” were mere extrapolations of the status quo, heedless of the forces that determine the fate of today’s organizations: competitive threats, customer needs and business costs. The concept of strategy changed all that, paving the way for the creation of the modern corporate world.

    The Lords of Strategy recounts the birth and evolution of strategy—arguably the most influential business paradigm of the past half century—and the trials and triumphs of the surprising disruptors who invented it. Principal among them were four men—Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group; Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company; Fred Gluck, longtime managing director of McKinsey & Company; and Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter—each obsessed with pinpointing how companies achieve competitive advantage over others. This insider account reveals the industry’s pioneers as “idea junkies”: a new breed of intellectuals who wielded concepts as weapons for fighting business battles. Their relentless efforts to plumb the depths of competition exploded much of the prevailing wisdom, galvanized executives into action, and forced companies to understand themselves as never before.

    An important audiobook by one of management’s keenest observers, The Lords of Strategy provides listeners with a deeper understanding of the world they compete in, and a sharper eye for what works—and what doesn’t—when forging strategy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 8, 2010
    ISBN9781441872401
    The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World
    Author

    Walter Kiechel III

    Walter Kiechel III is the former Editorial Director of Harvard Business Publishing, former Managing Editor at Fortune magazine, and author of Office Hours: A Guide to the Managerial Life. He is base in New York City and Boston.

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    Reviews for The Lords of Strategy

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      Intellectual history of management consulting and the development of “strategy,” the idea of positioning one’s business based on factors such as costs, comparative advantages over competitors, and speed of cost reductions. Takes for granted that this was all a positive thing, even though as Kiechel points out the rise of strategy/management consulting corresponded with the decline of American industry, not to mention the immiseration of increasing segments of the population.
    • 5/5
      Interesting, insightful, and well-written book regarding business strategy and the establishment of the management consulting industry, including the early development of the well-known frameworks such as the BCG growth-share matrix and porters five forces. Not a beginners books - requires deep interest in strategy and business in general. At some points the book gets a bit too tied up in less interesting details.