Strategist For Hire
STRATEGIC NAVIGATION - A Systems Approach to Business Strategy
Ever heard the expression, "You don't know what you don't know"? For some twenty years, a relatively unknown physicist by the name of Eliyahu M. Goldratt has been changing the world of business, due in no small part to the efforts of author and business expert H.
William Dettmer. Dettmer's previous two books on the subject of the "Logical Thinking Processes," as they relate to Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC), have set a new standard for explaining the true power of TOC.
Now Dettmer has done it again, only bigger! Strategic Navigation applies the thinking processes to business strategy and its implementation. Although he uses a history of military planning as a tool of explanation, let me be perfectly clear, this book in no way promotes a military philosophy of "win-lose" or decimating one's competition. Dettmer is simply a master of thoroughly decoding a complex concept and his history of military planning in this book is not only appropriate, it is truly enlightening.
Strategic Navigation is destined to force TOC to the tipping point. Actually, it completes the evolution of TOC and brings it to a more robust model known as the Constraints Management Model (CMM). Detter documents the application of CMM in the world of strategy by using the thinking process tools of TOC in combination with the learning theories advanced by the late Colonel John R. Boyd, (USAF retired). This synergy is profound. "40-Second Boyd," as he was known, and his "energy-maneuverability theory" were responsible for the success of the F-15 and F-16 fighter designs.
Combining Boyd's OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) loop with logical thinking process tools gives Constraints Management Method its edge. Also, by clearly separating the tools of MM from the philosophy, Dettmer, reaching well beyond those who have gone before him, has delivered his greatest gift to business leadership yet. In fact, Strategic Navigation is so insightful, it could easily be mistaken for Dettmer's dissertation for a Ph.D. in Holistic Systems Thinking. It is that exceptional.
