Do the top strategy consultants have a patented model that they use to help their clients set up a business strategy? The answer is no - such a marvellous, secret model does not exist. But the approach of these consultants is totally different from that of the strategy departments in companies or that of business schools. Their approach is not secret - it is described in a blow-by-blow account in this book.

The book explains for the first time how the leading strategy consultants work. It shows how they set to work in an organization that they do not know, how they bring the truth to light, how they work together with the organization to give shape to the future and how they turn cynics into enthusiasts. This is not a book filled with strategic frameworks - no 7S models, no SWOT analyses, no new theories about the core competences of the organization. This is a handbook for managers and MBA students and graduates who need to solve a problem in a short time and arrive quickly at a usable end product.

The Craft of Strategy Formation describes the approach week by week. It gives practical examples, details a case study throughout the book, warns against pitfalls and explodes myths. Read in this book:
* Why creating a strategy is more than just 'a bit of logical thinking', and how it is that even 10 sharp minds cannot arrive at useful insights 'just like that'
* Why you do not always have to have a vision, and how you can have ideas without being creative
* What the difference is between a helpful and an unhelpful research question, and between a completely wrong and a more or less correct result
* What the strategic difference is between a hat and a walking stick
* How you can learn about your competitor without using industrial espionage
* What the most frequent mistakes are in a financial model and when a financial model is meaningless
* How to make sure that your results do not end up just being shoved into a drawer