This book is the fruit of a mutually exploring and informing conversation that has lasted several years, kept going by our shared passion for the topic. Some people argue over baseball, others over astrophysics; this book’s authors are hooked on managing – a strange hobby perhaps. Admittedly, we are an odd couple. Spender is a retired business school professor who had earlier careers as a nuclear engineer and consultant, Strong is a full-time management consultant with a new family. For more than forty years Spender has been working on ideas in the relatively recent field of knowledge management. In an earlier era Strong founded and helped manage an information technology services firm that did over $250 million worth of business before it was sold. Strong has been looking to underpin his intuitions about management practice with robust theory. Spender has lately been questioning the theories current in business schools, finding them increasingly rigorous but of declining relevance to real-world managers.

Our book is intended to offer actionable advice to managers on how to develop and execute superior strategies, and to do so more effectively and efficiently. We believe we offer managers techniques that will allow them to make better decisions under uncertainty, engage employees more fully, and deliver better results more quickly. Our conceit is that when leaders are able to harness the imagination of employees to the purposes of the firm, the result is valuable business model innovation. Our book shows managers how to make this rewarding connection.