Best books about planning for the future – Most people’s lives are spent bouncing from one day to the next. Their objectives change, but they are seldom pursued with vision and purpose. Effective goal planning distinguishes great achievers from those who remain in their “life is happening to me” routine.
Having clarity and a well-mapped strategy for what one desires in life is a thrilling and exciting process. Once life objectives are clear, concrete, and measurable, they may be pursued with confidence that they will be met. There are several resources available to help people determine their best life goals. In this guide, we’ll be sharing the best books about planning for the future.
Books About Planning For The Future
1. Good Strategy/Bad Strategy By Richard Rumelt
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy untangles the chaotic thinking that underpins too many plans and presents a clear path to developing and implementing an effective action-oriented strategy for the real world.
A leader’s primary responsibility is to develop and execute a plan. A good strategy is a particular and cohesive reaction to – and approach to – overcoming roadblocks. A smart strategy works by concentrating and directing power where it will have the most impact. However, Rumelt demonstrates an increasing and regrettable propensity to connect “strategy” with Mom-and-apple-pie ideals, airy bundles of buzzwords, motivating slogans, and financial ambitions.
He debunks these components of “poor strategy” in Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and awakens an appreciation of the potential of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power, ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth, that are eye-opening yet practical tools that can be put to use on Monday morning, and he uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life.
Apple to General Motors, the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, a tiny local market to Wal-Mart, Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, Cisco Systems to Paccar, and Global Crossing to the 2007-08 financial crisis are all specific instances.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy results from Rumelt’s decades of delving beyond the surface to confront complex topics honestly. It reflects an astounding mastery and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the genius and flaws of human character.
2. Strategic Planning By Keith Simerson
B. Keith Simerson understands from experience what works and what doesn’t when it comes to strategic planning. Strategic Planning: A Practical Guide to Strategy Formulation and Execution weaves such information into a roadmap for anybody entrusted with developing a strategic plan, assessing a strategic planning process, or effectively and efficiently implementing resultant plans.
The book is not a one-size-fits-all answer; instead, it provides a menu of knowledge and possibilities based on a comprehensive understanding of strategic planning with similarly broad applications.
The handbook focuses on two important components of the planning process: the many variables that contribute to a practical strategic planning framework and the numerous drivers and enablers of successful execution.
With specific facts at their disposal, readers will learn how to develop and implement a company strategy, a personal strategic action plan, or plans for any for-profit or nonprofit organization. Specific methodology, tools, and strategies will assist readers through the process of developing and implementing a successful plan.
3. Business Model Generation By Alexander Osterwalder
Business Model Generation is a guide for visionaries, game-changers, and challengers who want to defy outdated business models and create tomorrow’s firms. If your firm must adapt to harsh new realities but lacks a plan to stay ahead of your competition, you need Business Model Generation.
The book has a gorgeous, highly visual, 4-color design that takes important strategic concepts and tools and makes them simple to adopt in your business. It was co-created by 470 “Business Model Canvas” practitioners from 45 countries. It discusses the most prevalent Business Model patterns and helps you reinterpret them for your particular environment based on insights from top business thinkers.
You will learn how to comprehend, build, and execute a game-changing business model—or how to assess and renovate an existing one. You’ll better understand your consumers, distribution channels, partners, revenue streams, expenses, and core value offers along the route.
Business Model Generation includes practical innovation approaches utilized by major global consultants and corporations, such as 3M, Ericsson, Capgemini, Deloitte, and others. It is intended for people willing to forsake old ways of thinking and embrace new methods of value creation: executives, consultants, entrepreneurs, and leaders from all companies. If you’re willing to break the rules, you’re part of “the business model generation!”
4. Measure What Matters By John Doerr
Legendary venture investor John Doerr explains how the goal-setting method of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has enabled tech behemoths like Intel and Google to achieve spectacular growth — and how it can help any firm succeed.
In the autumn of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up for whom he had recently invested $12.5 million, the largest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin possessed incredible technology, entrepreneurial zeal, and lofty goals but no solid business model.
Page and Brin had to learn how to make difficult decisions on priorities while keeping their team on track if Google was to change the world (or even survive). They’d have to know when to abandon losing bets and fail quickly. And they need timely, relevant data to monitor their progress and assess what is important.
Doerr educated them about a tried-and-true method for achieving operational excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He encountered OKRs as an engineer at Intel in the 1970s when the renowned Andy Grove (“the finest manager of his or any period”) led the best-run firm Doerr had ever seen. Doerr then shared Grove’s idea with more than 50 firms as venture investors. It worked whenever the approach was rigorously followed.
In this goal-setting approach, objectives describe what we want to accomplish; key outcomes indicate how those top priorities will be met with specific, quantifiable activities within a defined period. Everyone’s objectives, from entry-level to CEO, are visible to the whole company.
The advantages are enormous. OKRs highlight the most significant work of a company. They concentrate effort and promote cooperation. They help staff stay on track. They connect goals across silos to unite and enhance the whole organization. OKRs improve workplace satisfaction and retention along the way.
Doerr provides a wide variety of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies in Measure What Matters, with narrators like Bono and Bill Gates, to highlight the focus, agility, and rapid development that OKRs have inspired at so many outstanding businesses. This book will assist a new generation of leaders in capturing the same enchantment.
5. The Lords Of Strategy By Walter Kiechel
Consider operating a company without a plan. It would be like driving blindfolded or constructing a home without a plan. Yet, only 50 years ago, business “plans” were just extrapolations of the status quo, oblivious to the factors that shape today’s businesses’ fate: competitive threats, consumer wants, and business expenses.
The notion of strategy transformed everything, setting the path for the contemporary corporate world to emerge. The Lords of Strategy chronicles the development and growth of strategy, possibly the most significant corporate paradigm of the last half-century, and the difficulties and successes of the unexpected innovators who created it.
Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group; Bill Bain, founder of Bain & Company; Fred Gluck, longstanding managing director of McKinsey & Company; and Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter were among them. Each was fascinated with determining how businesses get a competitive edge over others.
This intimate narrative exposes the industry pioneers as “idea addicts” – a new breed of intellectuals who used thoughts as weapons in commercial disputes. Their tireless pursuit into the depths of competitiveness shattered much conventional knowledge, pushed CEOs into action, and challenged businesses to understand themselves like never before.
The Lords of Strategy, an essential book by one of management’s most astute observers, gives readers a better grasp of the environment in which they compete, as well as a keener eye for what works — and what doesn’t — when crafting strategy.
Conclusion
A strategic plan for your business is essential. A strong strategy will help you go ahead with more confidence and make better judgments regarding the direction of your organization. Strategic planning may help you see your company’s future and show you how to get there—it’s a road map to success.
The books listed above are some of the best books about planning for the future that provide insights into creating a successful strategy, developing momentum, enhancing profitability, and raising morale.
Frequently Asked Questions
Jacobs envisioned towns with walkways for walkers rather than wide roadways for automobiles. She believed that the most essential aspect of urban design was how people would live in a city, not how visionaries felt she should live.
A bad approach lacks actionable steps. A bad strategy confuses strategy with objectives, ambition, vision, values, and effort (these things are essential but, on their own, are not strategy). A good plan is supposed to be cohesive; all activities taken by an organization should reinforce and support one another.
A poor strategy execution plan fails to recognize or establish the appropriate procedures, communication channels, and resources to execute key goals that will eventually accomplish the desired results.
A good strategy offers a clear roadmap, consisting of a collection of guiding principles or rules that specify the actions that individuals in the organization should take (and not take) and the items they should prioritize (and not prioritize) to reach desired objectives.
A business model is described and evaluated using nine basic blocks: customer segmentation, value propositions, channels, customer connections, revenue streams, essential resources, key activities, key partnerships, and cost structure.
Reference
- https://managementhelp.org/blogs/strategic-planning/2011/10/21/5-essential-books-for-strategic-thinkers/
- https://www.strategyzer.com/books/business-model-generation
- https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/sd.2012.05628haa.002/full/html
- https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/about-bmi/books/business-model-generation/
- https://www.whatmatters.com/
READ ALSO
