Thinking from Within: A Hands-On Strategy Practice

by Johan Roos

This text is a tribute to the idea that strategy should be practised in ways that fuel our minds by engaging our bodies. When we do strategy rather than think strategy we engage our senses in ways that pure intellectual reasoning cannot. This book considers ideas that can help leaders transform strategy into imaginative and responsible practice.

279 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 2006

About the author

A Swedish organizational theorist, and Chief Strategy Officer at Hult International Business School, known for his work on intellectual capital

Reviews

[Bernd · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short, densely written book consists of chapters co-written by Swiss academic Johan Roos and his collaborators, who ignore hardly any aspect of play and imagination, detailing what philosophers, psychologists and others have said about these subjects. Their purpose is to demonstrate that the Enlightenment values of rationality and analytical precision have unbalanced managerial thinking – and how you can right the scales to create a flexible, innovative organization that reacts quickly to unpredictable situations. Unfortunately, so thorough is these professors’ treatment of play that they take the fun out of it. A series of close-up photographs shows managers – mostly white men in shirts and ties – at play, or at least pointing at toys and models on a table. After seeing their stiff attitudes you won’t be surprised to read case studies that demonstrate the difficulty of applying the ideas in the book.