Strategy Unplugged

About this course

Hang on tight! Strategy Unplugged is an extensive, yet accessible course that will give you a new perspective on strategy. With 24 video lectures, you have nearly 3 hours of focused content presented by Sid Peimer with his entertaining dry sense of humour and more than 20 years experience in strategy - from start-up to blue chip. Lecture 1 : Expectations Everyone agrees that strategy is important, but no one agrees on what it is. Here Sid sets the stage for your journey. The veil begins to be is lifted off the mystique of strategy, and you begin your journey with a practical definition of the word 'service'. In 200 BC Archimedes proclaimed: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world”. Strategy Unplugged is both the lever and a stable platform to allow you to move the world. Lecture 2 : Occam's razor We encounter just a hint of basic mathematics to learn the concept of Occam's Razor. This concept, or rather principle, was proposed as early as the 1300’s by a Franciscan friar who lived in the English county of Surrey in a village called Ockham. His name was William of Ockham, and as a logician he proposed the following: “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate”. The spelling has changed somewhat over the years, but the maxim has survived - for very good reason. Lecture 3 : What qualities a strategist? Sid tells a fascinating story about the moon landing, and that Neil Armstrong actually did not say "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". To become a strategist requires no formal education - all it takes is a change of perspective, because when people ask for a strategy, all they are asking for is your perspective. Lecture 4 : Military heritage Although there are a substantial number of military strategists (as there have been a substantial number of conflicts), we begin with Su