HBR Guide to Thinking Strategically (HBR Guide Series)

APPENDIX B

Organizational Strategy: A Primer

This guide has focused on the day-to-day aspects of strategic thinking—understanding your company’s objectives, setting priorities, and aligning your team—and has mostly taken as a given that your company already has a clear and defined strategy.

However, the further you advance in your career, the more you’ll be a participant in developing your company’s strategy. And even if you’re a new or midlevel manager now, understanding how and why your leaders set the organizational strategy will help you execute it with your team.

This appendix explains what strategy is, how to formulate it, and what leaders should be thinking about when they set and update company strategy.

What Is Strategy?

Bruce Henderson, ...