Best 45 quotes of W. Chan Kim on MyQuotes

The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition

A blue ocean strategic move can create brand equity that lasts for decades

A good way to test the effectiveness and strength of a strategy is to look at whether it contains a strong and authentic tagline.

As of yet there has been no theory or process for true strategy creation.

Blue ocean strategists do not seek to beat the competition. Instead they aim to make the competition irrelevant.

brand building increasingly relies heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations spreading rapidly through our networked society.

Disengaged employees are an unfortunate reality in the workplace, and poor leadership is often to blame.

Don’t fight alone. Get the higher and wider voice to fight with you. Identify your detractors and supporters—forget the middle—and strive to create a win-win outcome for both. But move quickly. Isolate your detractors by building a broader coalition with your angels before a battle begins. In this way, you will discourage the war before it has a chance to start or gain steam.

Drawing a strategy canvas is never easy. Even identifying the key factors of competition is far from straightforward. As you will see, the final list is usually very different from the first draft

Effective blue ocean strategy should be about risk minimization and not risk taking

executives are often reluctant to accept the need for change; they may have a vested interest in the status quo, or they may feel that time will eventually vindicate their previous choices. Indeed, when we ask executives what prompts them to seek out blue oceans and introduce change, they usually say that it takes a highly determined leader or a serious crisis.

Focus, divergence, and a compelling tagline. Without these qualities, a company’s strategy will likely be muddled, undifferentiated, and hard to communicate with a high cost structure.

Focus on the big picture, not the numbers.

If you ask companies to present their proposed strategies in no more than a few slides, it is not surprising that few clear or compelling strategies are articulated.

individuals seek recognition of their value, not as “labor,” “personnel,” or “human resources” but as human beings who are treated with full respect and dignity and appreciated for their individual worth regardless of hierarchical level.

industry history shows, new market spaces are being created every day and are fluid with imagination.

luck, of course, will always play a role, as it does with all strategies

Messages communicated through numbers seldom stick with people

Organizational politics is an inescapable reality of corporate and public life.

Our research reveals that most companies’ strategic planning process keeps them wedded to red oceans. The process tends to drive companies to compete within existing market space.

Perspective is critical to success. Your mind-set is more ingrained than you realize.

Red oceans may not be the paths to future profitable growth, but they feel comfortable to people and may have even served an organization well until now, so why rock the boat?

Stakeholders need to know that their voices have been heard and that there will be no surprises.

Strategic move will be well placed to create multiple blue oceans over time, thereby continuing to deliver high growth and profits over a sustained period.

strategic planning should be more about collective wisdom building than top-down or bottom-up planning.

strategy is about confronting an opponent and fighting over a given piece of land that is both limited and constant.

Strategy is heavily influenced by its roots in military strategy. The very language of strategy is deeply imbued with military references— chief executive “officers” in “headquarters,” “troops” on the “front lines.” Described this way, strategy is all about red ocean competition. It is about confronting an opponent and driving him off a battlefield of limited territory.

strategy perforce becomes a zero-sum game where one company’s gain is another company’s loss

The aim of blue ocean strategy was straightforward: to allow any organization—large or small, new or incumbent—to step up to the challenge of creating blue oceans in an opportunity-maximizing, risk-minimizing way

The creation of blue oceans, in other words, is a product of strategy and as such is very much a product of managerial action.

The hardest battle is simply to make people aware of the need for a strategic shift and to agree on its causes

The planning process doesn’t produce strategy

There are three mutually reinforcing elements that define fair process: engagement, explanation, and clarity of expectation

there is no such thing as a riskless strategy Strategy will always involve both opportunity and risk,

The theory that any idea that takes more than ten minutes to communicate is probably too complicated to be any good

The traditional units of strategic analysis—company and industry—have little explanatory power when it comes to analyzing how and why blue oceans are created. (..) The most appropriate unit of analysis for explaining the creation of blue oceans is the strategic move—the set of managerial actions and decisions involved in making a major market creating business offering.

This is a trap many companies fall into. Lacking a holistic understanding of strategy

Today, one hardly talks about strategy without using the language of competition.

To tip the cognitive hurdle fast, tipping point leaders such as Bratton zoom in on the act of disproportionate influence: making people see and experience harsh reality firsthand.

Voluntary cooperation is more than mechanical execution, where people do only what it takes to get by. It involves going beyond the call of duty, wherein individuals exert energy and initiative to the best of their abilities—even subordinating personal self-interest—to execute resulting strategies.

We don’t have a theory of strategy creation

when a company offers a leap in value, it rapidly earns brand buzz and a loyal following in the marketplace. Even large advertising budgets by an aggressive imitator rarely have the strength to overtake the brand buzz earned by the value innovator.

When people understand what is expected of them, political jockeying and favoritism are minimized, and people can focus on executing the strategy rapidly.

With your blue ocean move chosen, and its market potential confirmed, it's time to formalize your business model.

Youth and skill will win out every time over age and treachery. True or false? False. Even the best and brightest are regularly eaten alive by politics, intrigue, and plotting.