Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking

Rich Horwath has done what few others have done. He has made strategy clear, understandable, and practical. If you believe that simplicity is more powerful than complexity, then this is a great book for you. He explains three simple, but powerful ideas. A great strategy COALESCES around a single insight that will give your organization a real, meaningful advantage that matters to customers, it gives you the ability to COMPETE successfully in the marketplace, and it needs to be CHAMPIONED every day by people throughout your organization. I also really appreciated Horwath's practical tools on deciding which tactics to focus on and which ones to let go of. If you are responsible for developing a strategy for your organization's success over the next three to five years, then I believe this book will be an invaluable guide in your efforts. Enormously useful and practical is the way I would describe this book. Keep it by your side as you move your organization steadily forward.

Elevate forced me to stop and consider; Are my day to day activities defined by a well thought out strategy to take our business to a higher level or am I simply a reactionary? It turns out like many business executives not enough of the former. Fortunately, Elevate provides a blue print on how to build on a more solid foundation. It offers an architecture for developing and executing strategy so you can rise above your competition. Besides the great payout of actionable tools to advance your strategic thinking this book is extremely well written. The language is straightforward and concise .... like drinking from a clear stream. Take the time to read, Elevate. I'm putting it to work.

I liked so much of it. Really. But for me it seems like, that the chapters don't have a conducting wire. I felt lack that an big picture (i know that i incur in an error, thinking that strategy is linear) linking each chapter, step by step. Maybe if had a blueprint of all the book on beginning, would be good compass. Rich gave us a great book. Very good tips and explains about strategy. I recommend the Introduction and Champion chapters, because are good descriptions about what happens and what we must to do inside the company to apply strategic thinking internally.

I liked very much the way is defined strategic thinking for practical purposes of an enterprise training in strategic thinking. I used it in my course in a Master Degree for High Direction in order to define the elements to analyze for asessing the level of strategic thinking of a leader and to contribute to its improving. Congratulations to the author of this good book!!!!! Jose Miguel

Rich's new book provides several real-world examples of how to champion and influence strategic thinking within organizations. He also breaks down strategic behavior into very logical and understandable elements such as how to make time for individual thinking, and how to break out of 'fire drill mode'. This book is full of actionable tips you start applying to improve the way you work, and more importantly - think strategically. Highly recommended.

If you are looking for a book on Advanced Strategic Thinking this is not it. This is about as basic as you get. If you know nothing about strategic thinking this book might be a good place to start as a basic primer. I read the positive reviews here and the ones included on the book cover and I wonder if these people actually read the book, and if so have they ever done anything strategic in their lives? After decades of working strategic issues I find the title and premise of this book quite misleading. I had hoped when I picked up this book that finally someone would have brought together the essence of strategic thought into one book that might be of value. I was wrong. The three disciplines mentioned in the book Coalesce, Compete, and Champion are not disciplines at all. I cannot even tell based on the context of the book what definition of the word discipline is being used, or perhaps the author has created a new definition. It is not discussing a branch of knowledge, or a set of rules, or a standard. One could say that the word used here is a synonym for the word practices however if that is so why not use that word. Although practices does not adequately capture the meaning either it is much closer than the word disciplines. Why does this matter? Because words matter and for a book that espouses ADVANCED thinking, words should be as precise as possible. Coalesce, compete and champion as used here are principles not disciplines. As principles they are some of the most basic for anyone involved in strategic thought. I rated this with three stars because it does have some value to the novice, however it is certainly not a book on advanced strategic concepts.

The GOST framework concept alone is worth the price of the book. That framework will change the way you operate both professionally and personally. I love his books. Go to Strategy Kiln for other info on GOST as well.

This was a VERY good book, I underlined a ton of it -- and have recommended it to several clients. I teach strategic thinking at the Wharton School of Business each year - and I picked up a few new ideas to add into my seminar. Definitely worth the investment of time and money for anyone interested in strategy.

The author uses a single analogy (being in a helicopter, as opposed to a 30,000 ft view) to loosely connect every business strategy framework/model. There are no new or good ideas in this book. I wish I could get my money back.