54 inspiring strategy quotes

Jeroen De Flander – strategy quotes update PDF 1

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Strategy Quotes: my top 10

Strategy Quote #1. “Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions” —Henry Mintzberg

Strategy Quote #2. “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” —Michael Porter

Strategy Quote #3. “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out” —Decca

Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles 1962

Strategy Quote #4. “Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see

distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things” —

Miyamoto Musashi, legendary Japanese swordsman

Strategy Quote #5. “Corporate Social Responsibility should be more than coloring your

annual report green and giving a bag of money to your favorite charity in return for some

nice pictures” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Quote #6. “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without

strategy is the noise before defeat.” —Sun Tsu, Ancient Chinese Military strategist

Strategy Quote #7. “Strategy is thinking about a choice and choosing to stick with your

thinking” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Quote #8. ”You cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you

cannot go south at the same time.” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Quote #9. ”Like strategy, innovation is a cool word. Put strategy and innovation in

a single phrase and a strategy tourist starts drooling.” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Quote #10. “Don’t fool yourself: having a strategy map is not the same as having a

strategy” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Execution quotes: my top 10

Strategy Execution Quote #1. “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look

at the results” – Sir Winston Churchill

Strategy Execution Quote #2. “Execution is a specific set of behaviors and techniques that

companies need to master in order to have competitive advantage. It’s a discipline of its

own” —Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy, Execution


Strategy Execution Quote #3. “From Good to Great is nice, but knowing when great is good

enough is even better.” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Execution Quote #4. “Strategy Execution isn’t something other people should

worry about while you are doing something far more important” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Execution Quote #5. “If companies would invest as much time in their strategy

cascade as they do in their budgeting process, most would perform a lot better” —Jeroen

De Flander

Strategy Execution Quote #5. “In many organizations, budget is king. It’s like the Amazon,

the source of life. The strategy process is more like a small stream that meanders slowly

through the organization (and if you’re unlucky, the water doesn’t flow at all and starts to

smell).” —Jeroen De Flander

Strategy Execution Quote #6. “Strategy Execution is the responsibility that makes or breaks

executives” —Alan Branche and Sam Bodley-Scott, Implementation

Strategy Execution Quote #7. “A strategy, even a great one, doesn’t implement itself”

Strategy Execution Quote #8 “Persistence is what makes the impossible possible, the

possible likely, and the likely definite” —Robert Half

Strategy Execution Quote #9. “Just because someone said yes to you doesn’t mean

something is going to happen. Most of the yeses we get are noes in disguise” —Jeroen De

Flander

Strategy Execution Quote #10. “Don’t measure your performance by what you have

accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished within your capabilities” —

Jeroen De Flander

Strategy quotes / strategy execution quotes: the best of the rest

21. “Don’t go for small commitments on big things, but aim for big commitments on small

things” —Jeroen De Flander

22. “Dear Executives, execution commitment is not for sale. You have to earn it” —Jeroen

De Flander

23. In a crisis: “A previously approved strategy could very well be less realistic today, due

to reduced execution capacity in your organization.” —Jeroen De Flander

24. “Dear CEO, when you get tired of telling the strategy storyline, you have reached three

percent of your target population” —Jeroen De Flander

25. “Most of us know the marketing concept of good communication. To make a message

stick in the head of a future consumer, you need to deliver the message seven times using


seven different channels. Why do executives think that to make a strategy stick, a boring

speech delivered once will be enough?” —Jeroen De Flander

26. “In a 4×100-metre relay race, one runner starts before the other, but in the end it’s the

sum of the four runners that determines performance” —Jeroen De Flander

27.“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all” —

Peter Drucker

28. “What’s the use of measuring speed if you don’t go in the right direction” —Jeroen De

Flander

29. “A Balanced Scorecard helps turn parrots – people who just repeat what they have

heard – into ambassadors – people who understand the what and why and can reason

decisions with others” —Jeroen De Flander

30. “If you have too many rear view mirrors , it will be very difficult to see the road

ahead” —Jeroen De Flander

31. “Budgets are like oil tankers – they need time to change course. You don’t want to be

left standing on the deck of your oil tanker, watching all the opportunities pass you by

unable to stop and turn to chase after them.”

32. “Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent

alignment” —Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last

33. “After a business implements a strategy, competitors will react, and the firm’s strategy

will need to adapt to meet the new challenges. There is no stopping point and no final

battle. The competitive cycle continues on perpetually. Produce and compete or perish”

—Thomas Timings Holme

34. “Body language can’t save you when someone is reading your strategy document” —

Jeroen De Flander

35. “When building a new strategy, don’t ever let people seduce you with the line, ‘But

that’s always been budgeted for’.” —Jeroen De Flander

36. “The best time to make up your mind about people is never” —Katharine Hepburn in

The Philadelphia Story

37. “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of

genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction” —Albert Einstein

38. “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may

speak” —Hans Hoffmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap

39. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” —Leonardo Da Vinci


40. “You can have anything you want – you just can’t have everything you want” —

Anonymous

41. “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work” —

Peter Drucker

42. “Initiative prioritization doesn’t mean distributing all available resources to all known

projects” —Volker Voigt

43. “Strategy Execution is all about realizing the full potential of your strategy – and not

limiting yourself to only 50, 60 or 70 percent” —Jeroen De Flander

44. “I have never seen a successful project run by a bad project manager”

45. “An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is

the ultimate competitive advantage” —Jack Welch

46. “Developing people in a classroom is a cost. It becomes an investment when they start

applying what they learnt on-the-job. It only becomes a success the moment it has a

positive impact on (performance) what the job actually needs to achieve” —Jeroen De

Flander

47. “In life, as in football, you won’t go far unless you know where the goalposts are” —

Arnold H. Glasgow

48. “The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever

seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are

going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with

them” —Denis Watley

49. “No goal commitment equals no performance, whatever else you try” —Jeroen De

Flander

50. “We tend to think that, in a traditional organisation, people are producing results

because management wants results, but the essence of a high-quality organisation is people

producing results because they want the results. It’s puzzling we find that hard to

understand, that if people are really enjoying, they’ll innovate, they’ll take risks, they’ll

have trust with one another because they are really committed to what they’re doing and

it’s fun” —Peter Senge

51. “Real commitment means doing everything in your power to get things done.” —Jeroen

De Flander

52. “Like a human being, a company has to have an internal communication mechanism, a

‘nervous system’, to coordinate its actions” —Bill Gates, co-founder Microsoft

53. “The result of bad communication is a disconnection between strategy and

execution” —Chuck Martin, former Vice President IBM


54. “Look beyond the send button and shift your focus to the receiving end”

Do you have strategy quotes of execution quotes that you like to see on the list? Drop me a line.


About the author: Jeroen De Flander is one of the world’s most influential thinkers on

strategy execution and a highly regarded keynote speaker. He has shared the stage with

prominent strategists like Michael Porter and reached out to 21,000+ leaders in 30+ countries.

His first book Strategy Execution Heroes reached the Amazon bestseller list in 5 countries and

was nominated for Management Book of the Year 2012 in the Netherlands. His new book is

called The Execution Shortcut.

“De Flander’s latest book charts a strategy for taking any idea off the drawing board and into real

life. A great help to anyone looking to bring a good idea into the real world.”

Kirkus Reviews

"De Flander has added another chapter to the emerging science of strategy execution."

Prof. Robert Kaplan, Harvard Business School & Dr David Norton

"This book explains in an engaging way how Just Do It's don’t come automatically. It only happens when

the mind is triggered, the heart inspired, and willpower strengthened."

Bert Stevens, Vice President Europe Operations, Nike