Blog: John Myers: Efficiency vs Strategy

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Efficiency vs Strategy

I have talked in the past about the work of Gary Hamel and his thoughts on management strategy. I recently picked up his book on the future of management.

In one area, Hamel talked about the false assumption that operational excellence/efficiency equates to strategy excellence. When I read that, I thought of the immortal words from the movie Other People's Money:

"You know, at one time...there must have been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made...the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw." - Larry the Liquidator

This week's news about Motorola splitting their company into separate pieces confirms that while you can run a very operationally excellent business ( ... and what else could you consider the inventors/developers of six sigma ... ) you can in fact run it in a less than optimal direction. Something that I have felt that Motorola has done "very well" for quite some time.

NOTE - You can't a discussion like this with bringing up this quote...