I’m re-reading one of my favorite “business” books, Good Strategy / Bad Strategy. It’s full of common-sense stuff you theoretically shouldn’t need to be reminded of much but practically need to be reminded of constantly.

Stuff like this:

“Despite the roar of voices wanting to equate strategy with ambition, leadership, “vision,” planning, or the economic logic of competition, strategy is none of these. The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.”

The goal of your business is to figure out the lever(s) that matter, then to lean into them aggressively. This has two major parts - the finding and the leaning. The finding (and subsequent focusing) tends to be hardest.

A good way to think of this is through First Principles. What are the building blocks of the problem you’re looking to solve and the solution your potential customers currently use to solve it? The things they take for granted as true that might not be? Or the things that were true until there was a change - technically, socially, etc.?

We talked about this before with our good friend Jason Belmonte, the best bowler of all-time who bowled with two hands when everyone else bowled with one. People made fun of him for years, but he was able to put something like 40% more spin on the ball, which means he kicked everyones ass and now young bowlers all ball with two hands.

Flawed First Principles, like everything else, are easier to find the narrower you get on customer. And the best customers are the ones already starting to question those First Principles.

I tore my achilles two weeks ago. I tried to get an appointment immediately, because, you know, my achilles was torn. I tried four surgeons near me and the quickest appointment I could get was 10 days out. I pleaded with the scheduling services - “just let me speak with a nurse - they’ll know I need to come in sooner.” But the rules are set - no “new” patients get past the scheduling service.

When I showed up at my appointment, the nurse and surgeon were both furious. “We needed to see you the day after this injury so we could get surgery scheduled! What happened?!”

When I told them the scheduling story - noting that after they didn't have an immediate appointment I (unsuccessfully) tried a bunch of other doctors - the doctor said “we all implemented this a few years ago because we thought this would save us time and money, but it’s just not working. Urgent patients can’t get through and those are the important ones.”

The implication was clear. They had probably lost a bunch of urgent patients - the ones who need help fast but also the ones that get surgery a serious **moneymaker - in favor of less urgent patients that booked appointments a month or two out to check in on a bunion.One of the first principles - how they schedule appointments - is broken. At least for this hospital. And that’s an interesting thing to align around and dig in on.

Anyway, the book’s worth a read to remind you about what a strategy actually is. Looking for the thing that matters and leaning into it.

Which of your customer's First Principles are you pushing on?