Managing from Clarity: Identifying, Aligning and Leveraging Strategic Resources

a Most organizations cana t execute strategy. Complexity is their enemy. Managing from Clarity provides a roadmap for introducing systems thinking to your organization. Read it; ita s a snapshot of how strategy will be managed in the 21st Century.a David P. Norton, President, Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, co--author of the best--selling The Balanced Scorecard and The Strategy--Focused Organization a If youa re not a systems thinker, youa re not a good business leader. A few born leaders do it through intuition. For all the rest, therea s Managing from Clarity. The book will spell out for you how to build your strategic agenda and how to align your leadership team around it.a Francis Gouillart, CEO, Emergence Consulting, co--author of the best--selling Transforming the Organization a this book [turns] the art of system dynamics interventions into science for the first time. For those of us who live the successes and the frustrations of organizations every day, this is a gift.a Jorge Rufat--Latre, Director, Strategos a a powerful set of ideas and frameworks for anyone with strategic responsibility.a Kim Warren, Teaching Fellow, Strategic & International Management, London Business School, author of Competitive Strategy Dynamics a Finally, someone has harnessed the power of System Dynamics and crafted it into a useful tool for strategy development and strategic management ...[this book] demonstrates the potential insight that can come from systems thinking and its power to align an organization around a single view of the business model and strategic direction.a Michael J. Puleo, Director, Deloitte Consulting a combine[s] the conceptual insights from the academic literature with the savvy of consultants to provide a sound approach to managing any organization.a James S. Dyer, The Fondren Centennial Chair in Business, University of Texas at Austin a an intelligent and vivid introduction to an extremely powerful set of concepts and tools for strategy development.a Andreas Koch, Principal, L.E.K. Consulting

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements. Introduction: Why Manage from Clarity? What Does It Mean? The GRASP Map: Capturing and Integrating Expert Understanding of the Business Model. The Top to Bottom Gap: Making Explicit the Global and Local Perspectives of the System. Managementa s Job: Integrating the Local Perspectives to Achieve the Global Perspective. Key Resource Dynamics: Understanding the Drivers of the Resource Bundles that Provide Competitive Advantage. Resource Integration: Testing the Strategy for Superior Performance. Scenario Planning and Strategic Foresight: Testing the Assumptions Underlying the Strategy. Learning Interfaces: Communicating the Robust Model. Application Arenas Future Developments: The Strategist. Notes. References. Index.

About the Author :
JAMES L. RITCHIE--DUNHAM is President of Strategic Clarity, where he has worked with many Global Fortune 1000 companies. In addition to the teaching positions held at the University of Texas at Austin and the ITAM in Mexico City, he is an active member of the Society of Organizational Learning, INFORMS, and the System Dynamics Society. He is currently studying for a doctorate in Decision Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, and has an MIM from Thunderbird, an MBA from ESADE, and a BSc in Petroleum Engineering. He regularly publishes articles in various practitioner and academic journals. HAL T. RABBINO is a vice president at the consulting firm Strategic Clarity. A management consultant for over ten years, he has helped organizationsa leaders from five continents manage from clarity. Hal has presented his work at leading practitioner and academic conferences and published in the System Dynamics Review . Hal has a MIM from from Thunderbird (AGSIM), an MBA from ESADE in Barcelona, and a BA from Tufts.

Review :
"!full of useful ideas well argued and well presented!" (Long Range Planning)