Business Strategy—Creation, Execution and Monetization

Date01 May 2015
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22055
AuthorPatrick J. Stroh
Published date01 May 2015
101
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22055
This article was originally published in Volume 25, Number 6 of The Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance.
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Patrick J. Stroh
Good leaders understand strategy, and good strat-
egists need to be good leaders. Strong leadership,
insightful strategy, and effective innovation are
critical links to staying ahead. This article explains
how great models and exceptional concepts can
be put into play in the real world.
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
B usiness Strategy—Creation, Execution
and Monetization
As leaders, we are
all responsible
for business strat-
egy. You simply can’t
point to one person in
the organization and
say, “John, you are
responsible for strategy;
tell us what to do.” It
doesn’t work that way.
However, you do need a
point person on strategy.
WHO IS YOUR CHIEF
STRATEGIST?
A point person for strat-
egy focuses on facilitating the
executive team in creating,
debating, implementing, and
executing strategy. This person
has to be consultative in nature.
They don’t have to have all the
answers, but they do have to
possess the emotional intelli-
gence (EQ) needed to pull peo-
ple together, ask the right ques-
tions, and discuss strategy in a
healthy and productive fashion.
Who is this master facilitator in
your organization? Who should
it be? Let’s take a deeper look.
When I wrote my book on
business strategy, the original
working title of the book was,
“The ‘S’ Word: Parables on
Business Strategy.” That work-
ing title sets some interesting
context. Business strategy is
important: Few senior executives
and CEOs would disagree with
that. So if it is important, why
does “strategy” have a bad repu-
tation and sometimes induce eye
rolls?
In the original title, the
wordplay in the title was that
“S” stood for strategy, but there
are some who think it stands for
another “S” word—you know,
the common four-letter profan-
ity. Well, it could just as well be
that sometimes. It seems that
the concept, function, and con-
sulting around “strategy” has
fallen so far from grace that the
word strategy could almost be
considered like the
four-letter profanity.
Again, it’s not that
leaders don’t agree
that a strategy is
needed and critical
to achieve success,
but they have gone
through too many
poor experiences
with strategy.
Not only do you need to
think about “who” is the point
person for strategy role, but also
“how” they are (or need to be)
doing it. I am a huge proponent
of teaching, learning, and lead-
ing with two aids—storytelling
or the use of parables, and work-
ing specifically to utilize “ideas
that stick” when leading others.
Especially today when “Dr.
Google,” the search engine,
is always at your fingertips,
memorizing facts and figures
has become almost an archaic
learning style. But the learn-
ing style of storytelling, while
thousands of years old, is as
applicable as ever. I believe this
is the same style you need to
use to be an effective leader and
business strategist. Before we go
back directly to the question of

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