Written by Jimmy Brown, Ph.D., ‘Systems Thinking Strategy’ is helping thousands of business understand how their capabilities, customers and competitive environment are interacting and impacting their business success. Providing the bold strategy that so many businesses lack, the book is resonating with readers around the world.
Little Rock, AR -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/25/2013 -- According to Jimmy Brown, Ph.D., many companies with world-class products and services fail due to deploying bad or non-existent strategy. Confident that true strategy can drive a sustainable competitive advantage, Brown’s new book is helping those who have previously overlooked this vital piece of the business puzzle.
‘Systems Thinking Strategy: The New Way to Understand Your Business and Drive Performance’ isn’t a book of theory; it’s a compelling step-by-step guide to developing a holistic approach that incorporates critical ‘systems thinking’.
Synopsis:
Why are some organizations more successful than others? Is it better products? Is it a superior service model? Is it some mixture of the two? Is it merely a matter of lining up the products and services to meet the needs of the marketplace at a particular time? Or did they just get lucky? Many business leaders believe that the answer to these questions is a matter of strategy. Find the right strategy and the company is bound to be successful.
Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to find that right strategy. The question is why? Do they not go on enough executive retreats? Did they hire the wrong consultants? Were their PowerPoint slides just now powerful enough? While any of these factors could be a contributor, our research shows that the real driver is strategy efforts focusing too much on singular dimensions (e.g., the competition) rather than considering the entire ecosystem. Without a full view of the complete business environment, it is impossible to make fully informed decisions. Without being fully informed, we risk making the wrong choices.
The Systems Thinking Strategy addresses this issue by providing a holistic approach that incorporates multiple domains into the strategy discussion. By incorporating systems thinking (e.g., Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline) into the strategic planning process, we are able to understand how our Capabilities, our Customers, and the Competitive Environment are all interacting and impacting our business success. It then provides an approach to making sense of those disparate data points so that we can make the right decisions to drive business success.
Discussing why the book’s model is so important, the author cites a real-world case study.
“This book is important because too many companies and too many executives fail due to having the wrong strategy. Case in point, the recent firing of Ron Johnson from JCPenny after his failed attempt to implement a new strategy that was dramatically different. In 2010 Léo Apotheker was fired from Hewlett-Packard for making similar mistakes, and the company is still struggling to recover. In both cases, these leaders failed they neglected to take a holistic view of their organizations and the environments in which they operate,” says Brown.
Continuing, “They ignored critical components of their strategic ecosystem. As a result, the companies floundered, and the economic impact hurt only the CEOs but many of their employees. This scenario plays out far too often. The Systems Thinking Strategy provides a way to avoid these failures by providing a proven model that takes a more comprehensive approach the strategy process.”
Since its release, the book has garnered a consistent string of rave reviews. For example Tim Goodly, PhD Senior Vice President of Human Resources for a Fortune 100 Company says, “Dr. Brown has accomplished a rare feat with his book-he has taken the overused and often misunderstood notion of organizational strategy and provided a clear and practical definition coupled with a pragmatic model grounded in systems thinking that offers a potential roadmap for firms to better leverage their organic capabilities and gain a competitive advantage in the business landscape.”
With the book’s demand increasing, interested readers are urged to purchase their copies as soon as possible.
‘Systems Thinking Strategy: The New Way to Understand Your Business and Drive Performance’ is available now: http://amzn.to/10XlBaT
About the Author: Jimmy Brown, PhD
Jimmy Brown, PhD, is the Strategy Practice Area Lead at Beacon Associates, where he is responsible for change management, organizational assessment/effectiveness, performance improvement, and business strategy consulting engagements. He is a frequent author and speaker onthe topics of business strategy and organizational change, and is regularly sought out for his insights on how to apply cutting-edge theory to solve real-world challenges. Dr. Brown received his master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Tulsa, and his PhD from Benedictine University's award-winning organizational development program. In addition to his consulting work, he is a professor in several graduate psychology and management programs.