The Art of What Works: How Success Really Happens

by William Duggan

A commonsense approach to creating effective new strategies from ones that are proven to work From Napoleon through Jack Welch, great leaders have always "borrowed" great ideas from others. The Art of What Works cuts against the grain of today's one-size-fits-all strategic gurus to argue that there are no intrinsically good or bad strategies--just flexible strategies that work best in given situations. Welch's appropriation of Six Sigma from Motorola, and use of its best features to revitalize GE, is a recent example of this approach. In this insightful and practical guide, leading strategist William Duggan lays the groundwork for building new strategic frameworks by observing what works--and what doesn't--in the real world. The Art of What Works shows business professionals how

Genres: Business Strategy, Nonfiction, Leadership

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 8, 2003

Reviews

[Adam Gurri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about what you would expect it to be. It describes a relatively simple framework for understanding decisionmaking under uncertainty, taken from von Clausewitz and tweaked to include the notion of "expert intuition", and then proceeds to rationalize everything and anything in terms of that framework.

The greatest value the book provides is serving as an enormous survey of the many theories of business success within the business and management community, as well as in its specific case studies. And this value shouldn't be underrated---Duggan truly explores a wide variety of perspectives and discusses important episodes in the history of many big successful companies. Ultimately he always winds up with a fairly quick and dirty explanation of how it all fits into the framework of the book. I think that anyone interested in the extended conversation among business and management theorists on the causes of success will find this worth their time.

[C. Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the first few chapters fully and then skimmed the rest. Its a good book for those running a business or looking to run a business. Didnt have much day-to-day, personal advice as I hoped it would.