Richard Rumelt
Professor emeritus at UCLA Anderson School of Management, Richard Rumelt earned recognition from McKinsey Quarterly as "strategy's strategist." His 2011 international bestseller Good Strategy/Bad Strategy established him as the field's most influential voice against wishful thinking masquerading as strategy. In The Crux (2022), Rumelt borrows from rock climbing to argue leaders become strategists by identifying the pivotal challenge—the crux—that's both solvable and promises greatest progress. Rather than setting lofty goals or financial targets, genuine strategy diagnoses the critical challenge's structure, then designs coherent action to overcome it. For executives drowning in strategic planning processes that produce incoherent wish lists, Rumelt offers rigorous clarity.
