Product Description

Business leaders need bold strategies to stay relevant and win. In Big Think Strategy, Schmitt shows how to bring bold thinking into your business by sourcing big ideas and executing them creatively. With the tools in this book, any leader can overcome institutionalized small think the inertia, the narrow-mindedness, and the aversion to risk that block true innovation. Your reward? Big, bold, and decidedly doable strategies that excite your employees and leave your rivals scrambling.

Drawing on years of advising corporate leaders on creativity and strategy development, Schmitt explains how to infuse fresh thinking into the planning process. Through his commentary on the Trojan War, the film Fitzcarraldo, and the composer Gustav Mahler, Schmitt uncovers the essence of bold leadership and the levers of revolutionary change. Abundant examples from Apple, Whole Foods, MySpace, IBM, General Electric, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to name a few, show big think strategy in action.

Tested by daring executives in a diverse range of industries, the practical ideas and tools in this book will help you leverage bold ideas in your strategic planning and position your firm uniquely for lasting market relevance and success.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111938 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-06
• Released on: 2007-12-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

About the Author
Bernd H. Schmitt is a professor at Columbia Business School in New York. His best-selling books, including Customer Experience Management, have been published in 16 languages worldwide. Schmitt advises senior executives on strategy, creativity, and innovation.

Customer Reviews

Breezy guide to developing revolutionary ideas
This is a fun book. Bernd H. Schmitt clearly enjoys not just working with ideas, but playing with them. To explain his concept, he draws on sources from Greek mythology to cyberspace. His examples range from IBM to the opera, and he explores creative analogies ("A strategy is like a great steak!") that show his lively mind and openness to learning from all kinds of sources. This book is not just entertaining, it is also useful. Schmitt shares a host of tips for producing new ideas and provides a big jolt of energy to help you get started. Reading this might make you want to roll up your sleeves and change everything about your business. However, Schmitt is breezy about potential challenges - talking about revolutionizing your industry won't do much good if you can't pay your rent. Thoughts about innovation fall along a spectrum. On one end are people who believe that many small changes or experiments can add up to marked change and market superiority; on the other end are those who think you have to make radical innovation in a sudden leap. Schmitt is very much on that end of the innovation spectrum. getAbstract recommends this book to those looking to jump-start their creative engines, to eager innovators and, since Schmitt focuses mostly on conceptual thinking, to those who can supply their own details.

Big Think Strategy----Bernd Schmitt
Bernd Schmitt does it again with his Big Think Strategy: How to Leverage Bold Ideas and Leave Small Thinking Behind book.

I read Schmitt's book on a plane ride from New York to Beijing and was captivated by it. Throughout the entire read, I was applying Schmitt's frameworks to my own industry and line of business and was frantically writing down all the ideas that emerged.

Big Think Strategy is also not written like a traditional textbook which is quite refreshing in that regard.

Overall, I see many types of professionals really getting alot out of Schmitt's new work (not just traditional executives). Schmitt's Big Think Strategy makes you think differently in whatever line of business you are in and I plan incorporating his frameworks within my unit and team immediately.

Schmitt does it again with his Big Think Strategy book. BRAVO SCHMITT!!! BRAVO!!!

Homage to 'Thinking Big' for business
The author's ambitious goal is, as the title says, Big Think strategy is to leverage bold ideas and leave small thinking behind. There are some good insights in particular why large companies incentive systems are not set up for big and bold straegies. SWOT analysis vs. Big Think; there is more to strategy than just analysis and the difficulty developing Big Think strategies with generic strategy types (like Porter's cost leadership, differentiation & focus).

I strongly believe that the concept of thinking big cannot be stressed enough. Where the weakness of the book starts is in its titel and goal; big think is great, but why bold? Big thinking can or cannot be bold. Big thinking is a strategic tool. To me, boldness is as important as thinking big, but in acting, not thinking. And now the fine nuances show; boldness should never be the strategy behind all of our actions. It is a tactical instrument, used at the right moment.

All in all, a good 'refresher' on thinking big for business while far from a must read book.