Strategy and the Fat Smoker: Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

by David H. Maister

We often (or even usually) know what we should be doing in both personal and professional life. We also know why we should be doing it and (often) how to do it. Figuring all that out is not too... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0979845718
• ISBN13: 9780979845710
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Spangle Press
• Length: 274 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Strategy for imperfect organisations

There are plenty of business books which contain inspiring and valuable ideas about excellent customer service, highly engaged employees, and strategies for creating remarkable success. The problem is that you almost never encounter organisations run the way recommended in such books. That is because it is easy to come up with a good strategy, but implementing a strategy is as hard as losing weight or giving up smoking, according to David Maister this book. Maister shows particular insight into the difficulty of implementing strategy within a professional services firm such as a law firm. Lawyers are paid by their clients to be suspicious about the motives of other people and to consider the possible downsides to any transaction; it is therefore unsurprising that law firms have trouble in cultivating a climate of trust between managers and lawyers. Often this ends in failure to make any decisions, or at least a very slow and painful decision process. I have read all of Maister's books, and in my view this one is the most useful to date. It is highly accurate in its identification of the range of strategy implementation problems encountered by professional services firms, and is filled with useful tactics for dealing with them. It is possible to have a highly profitable firm composed of competing warlords, but Maister's advice shows how to build a firm for the long term with engaged employees and happy clients.

Maybe The Big Three Automakers Should Read This!

Had the Big Three automakers heeded the advice of David Maister's "Strategy and the Fat Smoker" and stopped reaping short-term gains (by focusing on giant SUVs) at the expense of thinking towards the future, maybe these corporations wouldn't be on the verge of collapse! The Big Three's situation is a perfect example of "The Fat Smoker Syndrome". The Big Three knew they shouldn't keep focusing their business on huge, inefficient vehicles but they couldn't resist the giant profit margins that trucks and SUVs brought them. When demand for these vehicles sunk, they were not in a position to handle the consequences. Now GM, Ford, and Chrysler are paying the price. However, more than likely, the taxpayers will end up paying it.

Chugging Out Gems

I have been an avid follower of David Maister's for over 20 years and he keeps on chugging out gems. This latest work is no exception. Get it, read it, learn from it!

One of the most useful strategy books in print

David Maister has written another very readable, logical, practical book that's brimming with common sense. It's for leaders who could use a Dutch uncle's bony index finger in their sternum to remind them of what they already know but don't have the focus and discipline to do day after day. As a management consultant for the past 25-plus years, I've watched leaders struggle with defining, clarifying and implementing business strategies. They struggle because it's not easy work. It's like dieting or quitting smoking and staying with it. It's hard work. Drawing on the diet/smoking analogy, Maister offers up useful ways to think about strategy--starting with having the right mindset. To this he introduces tools, techniques and processes to make strategy work...this time. He's so usefully blunt with that bony index finger. "Real strategy lies not in figuring out what to do, but in devising ways to ensure that, compared to others, we actually do more of what everybody knows they should do." So, strategy is not just about strategy, but execution. And commitment and resolute focus. "You can't achieve a competitive differentiation through things you do 'reasonably well most of the time.'" And discipline. "The necessary outcome of strategic planning is not analytical insight but resolve." And knowing when to say no. "Strategy is deciding whose business you are going to turn away." Maister covers the gamut, from building ownership and accountability in the strategy (consequences for non-compliance), avoiding temptation, creating rules to live by, clarifying expectations and roles for leaders and overcoming obstacles that I have seen leaders struggle with over the years. Of all the business books that flood the market these days, Strategy and the Fat Smoker stands out for its practicality, common sense and long-term usefullness. It's already a dog-eared reference book on my bookshelf. Jim Shaffer Jim Shaffer Group