The review
Good Strategy / Bad Strategy : A sharp corrective to vague ambition through diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action.
Rumelt distinguishes real strategy from goals, slogans and templated planning, presenting the strategy kernel as a disciplined response.
It is the classic corrective for vague digital ambition. Across lenses, it helps leaders demand diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action—especially when AI and transformation programmes accumulate objectives without strategy.
Why it matters through the 6xD lens
Its primary contribution aligns with D2 · Digital Cognitive Organization. It also connects to D4 · Digital Transformation 2.0. Its ideas are most valuable when translated into enterprise choices rather than treated as isolated inspiration.
Executive application
- Challenge assumptions in current AI and transformation portfolios.
- Translate the argument into operating-model, architecture, governance and work-design implications.
- Pair the book with internal evidence and the wider 6xD knowledge system.
Who should read it
Recommended for CEOs, boards, CIOs, CDOs, transformation leaders, architects, policy makers and practitioners working on Strategy, Diagnosis, Execution.