Strategy Rules

Yoffie and Cusumano appreciate that Gates, Grove and Jobs embraced having “a new fire to put out” daily. They became astute at understanding what their competitors and collaborators (the three men interchangeably played both roles) could and might do. They were equally disciplined at knowing what people who weren’t them couldn’t do. Though many leaders don’t catch that exact moment when everything pivots, these CEOs “excelled at identifying major inflection points” – a moment that changes an industry or part of it.

That recognition guided their reactions to change; often they led innovative responses that turned future perils into profitable prospects. Yoffie and Cusumano capture crucial turning points in each leader’s career to illustrate his individual genius. After studying how each man acted during these pivotal moments, the authors extracted five strategic rules. They show how their subjects used these rules to run their empires: