The kernel of a good strategy contains three elements:

[zakiyatasnim]

What is Strategy
Strategy starts with identifying changes. Said in a different way, strategy is designing a way to deal with a challenge.

A strategy is working out how your existing assets can overcome the challenge and be used to flip the board and then crushing your competition as a result. A good strategy, therefore, has to:

identify the challenge to be overcome;
design a way to overcome it.
To do that, Rumelt suggests using a simple yet powerful canada cell phone number list model: the strategy kernel.


diagnosis;
guiding policy;
set of coherent actions.
His methodology of the kernel has been multiple times mentioned by prof of Marketing Mark Ritson on his writings and public speeches. Yet, it’s Rumelt who has defined the kernel.


The Strategy Kernel
First, we diagnose the situation of our company or brand via audience, market research, and understanding the context.

Then, we use that diagnosis to build a clear marketing strategy. Finally, we select the appropriate tactics and channels to deliver the strategy.

A good strategy might consist of more than the kernel, but if the kernel is absent or wrongly defined, then there is a serious problem.

The kernel does not split strategies into corporate, business, and product levels. It is very straightforward.

I like simplifying further the model as a Why-What-How approach.

We’ll use diagnosis to clarify why we are facing a challenge, the guiding policy will finalize what should be done, and then we will select how to execute the policy, with a set of coherent actions.

The Strategy Kernel
Source: Marketing Across Borders
In details:

Diagnosis
A diagnosis is an explanation of the nature of the challenge. A diagnosis defines the challenge.

What’s going on? What’s holding you back from reaching your goals? A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as being the critical ones.

A good deal of strategy is in fact understanding the situation, not just deciding what you should do.

The diagnosis for the situation should replace the complexity of the reality with a simpler story, a story that calls attention to its crucial aspects.

This simplified model of reality allows one to make sense of the situation and engage in further problem-solving.

Guiding Policy
A guiding policy is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis.

“Like the guardrails on a highway, the guiding policy directs and constrains actions in certain directions without defining exactly what shall be done”.

As Rumelt explains, the policy is “guiding” because it routes actions in certain directions without defining exactly what shall be done (this will be finalized by the coherent actions).

Good guiding policies are not goals, visions, or images of desirable end states.

This is what happens in scenario two, with Greg and Mike confusing goals for a company strategy.