Winning the Long Game: How Strategic Leaders Shape the Future

Every leader has to deliver the goods—make budget, meet deadlines, and deftly manage people—to provide the inspirational fuel that keeps their business running day-in and day-out.

But therein lies the danger of winning today’s battle and losing the war—that is the long game of creating sustainable value in a volatile, uncertain world that is becoming ever-more complex and ambiguous.

The number one business challenge—is winning the long game by being more strategic; developing the skills to look outside the four walls of the organization and see the world from the future back.

Steven Krupp and Paul J. H. Schoemaker bridge the gap between what many see as the separate domains of strategy and leadership to show how to develop the discipline of strategic leadership in a world of growing uncertainty.

Pragmatic to the core, Winning the Long Game creates vivid insights into the discipline of strategic leadership by applying it systemically through personal portraits of successful business leaders. The book profiles Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Sara Blakely, as well as world-renowned figures like Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey, and Nelson Mandela. What makes these strategic leaders successful is highlighted by contrasting them with others who are either mediocre or outright failures.

Winning the Long Game is the must-have playbook for every leader and for any manager seeking to be become more strategic in today’s topsy-turvy world.

About the Authors

Steven Krupp is the CEO of Decision Strategies International, a firm devoted to helping leaders become more strategic and organizations more adaptive in the face of uncertainty. Dr. Krupp advises premier global organizations and has published in Harvard Business Review, Harvard Management Update and Chief Learning Officer Magazine.

Paul J.H. Schoemaker is founder and executive chairman of Decision Strategies International and research director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, where he teaches strategy and decision-making. Dr. Schoemaker has authored or coauthored more than one hundred articles and is coauthor of the business bestsellers Decision Traps and Winning Decisions, among many other books.