Hello everybody. My name is Matthew Earnhardt, and I am joining you on this  wonderful journey of discussing strategic management. So when you think  about strategic management, it is so complex. I mean, it's just so complex, and  there's so much to it. So really, with these next series of lectures, our goal is to  just introduce some terms, kind of give you some ideas, kind of talk about what  strategic management is, and give you a very, very, very good and  comprehensive overview, and help you think strategy, which will help you with  your other classes. And I think you'll find some of the things that you've learned  in your other classes in this class as well. So I just wanted to let you know that  you know these, this, this video, the textbook that we're using, all the  supplemental materials that we will provide you there. They're all meant to give  you a picture. But the learning does not stop there. Certainly the learning  continues. And you can look things up. I use Google Scholar, so I  scholar.google.com, and I'll type in things like strategic management, and I read  some articles out there. But there's certainly other ways. And if you need  resources, feel free to reach out to us. Reach out to me, and I would be more  than happy to explain something further or really get into dive into the material  with some very intense theoretical examples. So you know, please feel free to  reach out, and we will provide you anything you need, but this will give you a  good, comprehensive overview of what strategy is. So you know, the textbook  defines strategy a certain way, and we will certainly discuss that. By the way, we are discussing Chapter one this week, a mastering strategy. It is both in art and  it is a science, and we'll talk about that, but, but when we think about strategy, I  want to boil it down to one thing and one true key concept, and that is, strategy  is about gaining a competitive advantage, and how a firm gains that competitive  advantage is different ways. So I will give you a couple examples. So Apple has  gained a competitive advantage in their space, and one of the things that Apple  will says is we do not have to be the cheapest in the market. We are going to we are going to gain our competitive advantage through a ecosystem that is tied  together, that's very closed. So Android is very open. Other people can come in,  they can develop those kind of things, but we're going to have a closed  ecosystem. This is apple, and we are going to focus on good design. We're not  going to have the latest and greatest technology, but we are going to focus on  good design and functionality. And that's how Apple, that's their competitive  strategy. And one of the things to think about that when it comes to Apple is that, you know, Apple is not cheap, like I I'm doing a calculation right now, and I  probably have probably about $5,000 worth of Apple products just right here,  between my my iPad, my phone, my computer, my watch. You know it's it's  Apple is not a cheap product, but for me, and where they've gained their  competitive advantages, I got into the ecosystem with one of the first iPhones,  and then I wanted everything I can to kind of help me in that area and keep that  same ecosystem. So I have too many books, too many movies, too many songs

on my iPhone. Now to where it makes sense for me to switch over to Microsoft  products, which I tried for a while, the company Acer. If we're going to stick in  the computer realm, the company Acer has tried a different strategy, a different  competitive strategy, remember to gain that competitive advantage. So Acer  strategy is, is, hey, 80% of people need basic functionality. They need to be able to surf the internet. They need to be able to do word processing. They don't do  any heavy video editing, like we do here at CLI. You can see, you know, it's quite the little setup right here in the studio. I'm looking at a camera. I have a lights all  over the place. There's, there's an Apple computer over there, which is used  because of, you know, when you're doing video editing, Apple has the best  software. Acer said most people aren't going to do that. Most people don't need  to be in a studio doing all this stuff. So what our strategy? G is going to be to  gain our competitive advantages. We're going to offer well made products that  work at a lower price point. And we will partner with Walmart. We'll partner with  other companies, other other businesses, to get our products in there so people  can find them. When you think about marketing, you think about the four Ps, you know, product and placement and those kind of things. Certainly that is part of  strategy, and we will talk about that in class as well. But Acer said, we do not  need to compete with Apple. They are a competitor because we're both selling  computers, but we don't need to compete with them. Compete with them. We  can get our competitive advantage in a very, very specific space. So, so what is  the definition of strategy? Well, strategy can refer to a plan or a set of  coordinated actions, certainly. But it also talks about competitive advantage. The book talks about Tesla, and asks if Tesla is going to make it, and then frame  strategic management within that frame, we're not going to talk about that. What I will say about Tesla, if you don't know what they are, they make electric cars.  They were one of the first in the space, but they focus heavily on innovation and  technology and design and making cool products. They're kind of like the Apple  of electric vehicles, if you will. If you're familiar with Apple products. So, and by  the way, driving the Tesla is very weird. I do not have a Tesla myself, that I have  driven my friends, and it's really weird how, and anybody who has a Tesla could  probably tell you, but it's really weird how you, when you normally are driving,  and you let off the gas, you just kind of coast in a Tesla. You stop, so you kind of  have to, like, you have to put your foot on the gas and put your foot off the gas,  but you can't just let off the gas. It's kind of, it's kind of strange. But anyway, this  isn't, this class isn't about Tesla. This is about strategic management. So let's  just, let's just talk about some key takeaways. So remember that strategic  management focuses on firms and different strategies that they will use to  become successful. So Apple has a strategy and Acer has a strategy, and  they're different strategies, and that's okay each firm or organization or  business, and we use all those terms interchangeably. Each one will use a  different method to find success. Something else to think about is that in order 

for a company to be successful, you got to know where you're going, so  strategic planning and planning for the future, and having that 3, 5, 10 year  outlook, one year plan. You know, certainly having those goals, that vision and  mission to values which we'll talk about are very, very important to remain  having success and maintaining a leader in the competitive marketplace.  Because, remember, you're fighting for market share, and ideally what you want  is you want 100% market share. So you want every single person to buy an  iPhone. You don't want anybody to go and buy an Android. You want everybody  to buy an iPhone. And that's okay. That is your goal. That's fine. I mean, that's  not realistic goal, but that could be a goal. So one of the things that you need to  remember, or we need to remember we, is that organizations and businesses  may need to alter their strategy as conditions change. So a good example of this is COVID 19, right? So in March of 2020, I emailed before that, in February of  2020 March 2020 certainly by April 2020 right around then, a lot of government  started to shut down, and a lot of a lot of people were out of work, and a lot of  businesses had to learn how to adapt and how to change their strategy in order  to make income to stay in business. So, so what are some examples of that?  Well, one of the examples of that could be a distillery, a distillery that was  making alcohol. I shifted from making alcohol, started making hand sanitizer.  And, you know, much to my annoyance, when I go into a place and I use hand  sanitizer and it smells like very strong alcohol, you know, I personally do not like  that, but it works like it cleans you, you know, I don't want to walk around  smelling that like that, but that is a strategy that that distilleries used, and they  had to change their strategy, and they had to shift their strategy to be  successful. So one of the things, and when you think about strategic  management. You think about planning, you have to be adaptable. So if you  learn nothing else over these next 12 modules, I want you to think about  adaptability and the importance of adaptability. One other example of it and  Christian leaders, was good enough to give me a little a little swag bag here. But one of the things that I got, and another thing that was a result of COVID that  resulted in radical change, is clothing companies started to make face masks,  right? So this was a strategy as well before COVID. If you lived in the United  States, the only time you would find these kind of face masks is if you were, you  were in the medical profession. So people weren't making cloth masks. They  certainly weren't making it with, you know, with their businesses on them. And by the way, I love this, Christian leaders Institute study online. So they weren't  making them, they weren't making face masks that were personalized. And you  could get a face mask with your dog on it, right? Those things were not  happening, but they are now, and that's because firms recognize that they  needed to adapt, that they needed to change, that they needed to do something  different in their strategic plan to meet their goals and stay competitive and stay  in the organization, I'm sorry, to stay in the marketplace, not close their 

organization. So the textbook talks has a couple exercises, and I think these are pretty good. And so I'm just going to answer one of these from my perspective.  And then, you know, I want you to, I want you to spend some time thinking about these yourself. And one of the things that the textbook asks is, have you  developed a strategy to manage your career? Should you make it more  detailed? Why or why not? So that's one question. I think that's a very personal  question, and I want you to spend some time answering that. The other  question, and I really like this question, this question I'm going to answer, is,  what businesses that you visit regularly seem to have the most successful  business model? What makes the business model work? So I can think of tons  of examples, and there's examples from Apple, which I just talked about, but one of the one of the things that I really like in my day is breakfast. It's one of my  favorite meals. And in the United States, there's so many breakfast places, and  there's chains, and there's and there's local shops, and there's franchises, and  there's just all kinds of places that you can go to get breakfast, and everybody's  competing. So one of the places that is my absolute favorite is called snooze,  and it's primarily out west. It started in Denver, Colorado, that's where I was  familiar with it. And then spread and they have places in Dallas, Texas and  Austin, and they have places in Phoenix, Arizona, and I think there are some  places in California anyway, it's primarily out west. The thing about snooze that  makes them great is what snooze has said is, listen, there's a lot of really, really  good breakfast places out there. But what we're going to do is, we're going to  give you a good environment. We're going to give you a little bit of a of a  different lifestyle, kind of a relaxed vibe. But what else we're going to give you is  we're going to give you really, really, really good pancakes, and that's what we're going to be known for. So you're going to go into snooze and you're going to eat  a pancake. Their blueberry Danish pancake is the best pancake in the world,  and they said, This is what we're going to be known for, is our pancakes, and  then we're going to build our strategy is to have really good pancakes draw  people in, and then we're going to and then we're going to do our menu around  that. So, you know, I just realized that one of the things I can do here is I can  bring up snoozes menu and I can show you. So I'm going to do that. So let me  switch cameras. Let me bring this up. Okay, so snooze. So snooze is known for  pancakes, but you can see here, you know, certainly they have other offerings,  and you know they focus on responsibly sourced and food that's very prepared,  but you can see. Here, those are some, some delicious pancakes that they  make. And I'm just going to, just going to focus on this one for a second, a little  more pancake. You know, who wouldn't want to eat that? But, but they have all  kinds of different pancakes, and they are known for that. And as I said, they  started Colorado. I actually own this shirt right here, but you can kind of see the  vibe of the restaurant. But they're a business that I think has a really good  strategy, which is, we're a franchise model. We are going to build up our 

business by using the franchise model, but, but we, all of our stores, are going  to be the same, and we're going to focus on having really, really good pancakes. And I will tell you, in Denver, Colorado, the line around there's a snooze on it's  on Colorado Boulevard. It's in Denver. It's right before you get downtown. If  you're going down Colfax, if you've never been to Denver. This wouldn't mean  anything to you, but if you know Denver, live in Denver, been to Denver, then  you'll know what I'm talking about. Or going to Denver if you go down Colfax  Avenue, which is the longest road in America, fun fact, and you make a left on  Colorado, down on the left hand side, there is a snooze and it's right next to a  UPS Store. And the interesting thing about this snooze is at 7:30am the line is  wrapped around the entire building, including the UPS store, including there's a  pizza shop there, and I think there's a candy shop as well, wrapped around the  entire building at 7:30 in the morning because people want delicious pancakes.  So that is, that is an example of a business in my mind, that does it very, very  well and has a very good strategy. We're going to be good at pancakes. We're  going to offer things around pancakes. We're going to give an experience, and  we're going to be the go to where people are going to stand in line for an hour  and a half to come to our restaurant because they love our pancakes so much.  So the book talks a lot about strategic planning, and what is your intended  strategy versus your emergent strategy versus your realized strategy. And they  use an example of Avon, but what I wanted to talk about is this concept of  intended strategy, realized strategy, emergent strategy, unrealized strategy. And  think about how you have to adapt and change your strategy so so you may, you may remember, if you've looked at it, you can see this chart, and it's the model  of what your unintended strategy is, what your unrealized strategy is, your  delivered strategy and your realized strategy. So what I want to say about that  is, remember that the intended strategy is what the organization wants to do.  That's what they intend to execute. So you know, they're they're part of the  strategic plan, but just because you intend to do something doesn't mean it's  going to come to fruition. There's a lot of external and outside forces that are at  play here, which are going to change your strategy, your model, the way you do  business. So again, going back to my, I don't want to pull it out again, but going  back to my face mask, you know, was a clothing company's intended strategy to create face mask. No, no, what? They didn't want to start out as a face mask  company. They want to do a clothing company and and they had to adapt their  model because of what was happening. Emergent strategy is unplanned  strategy that arises in response to unexpected opportunities or challenges. So  again, COVID, so using that mask is an emergent strategy, or switching from  creating alcohol to using that alcohol and creating hand sanitizer, even though I  personally don't like that. A lot of people do and it's hand sanitizer and it keeps  you safe. And then realized strategy. It's the strategy that actually happens. So  you know, you realize that you have the intended strategy, then you have what 

your what your other parts your strategy, and then you eventually you realize a  strategy, and that's what you follow, and that needs to be changed and adapted.  So at my organization, four years after we had a change in leadership, that  person came in and developed a strategic plan, and we noticed that we did not  implement every area of our strategic plan, especially around things out of our  control. So our realized strategy. Was different from what our intended strategy  was. Now we have just gone through another five year strategic plan update,  and we just went through this planning exercise, and we're still going through, in  fact, we're socializing it with our employees now, but, but as we went through  that now we have our real life strategy, which helped inform our future strategy  going forward, and I'll tell you right now that that strategy is going to need to be  modified. We're not going to be able to do everything we want to do. It's just  going to happen. That's the way things are. So as a firm again, adaptability is  key. If you don't adapt, you die. So that's something to to think about, remember  unrealized strategy is the abandoned parts of the end of the intended strategy.  So for instance, we had very robust marketing push on our strategic plan. We  realized that we could not. We could not. There were some other factors, which  we talk about forces a lot when we're talking about strategic management, but  there were other forces at play that we couldn't realize that strategy, so it  became an unrealized strategy. So what's the key? What's the key takeaway is  many people will come up with strategies that they hope to they follow to be  successful, that there's going to be things that happen that give rise to new  opportunities and new challenges and and then these emerging strategies are  used to change their path, and the real life strategies are part of both the  intended and the realized strategy. So does that make sense? I hope so. The  book goes into further detail, but I certainly wanted to talk about it. So the book  does a good job here, and I don't really want to focus a lot of time here, but  strategy has been around for a very, very, very long time. In fact, in the Bible,  strategy is discussed in detail. The book talks about Moses, and he had quite  the challenge of leading Hebrews out of Egypt, and he began delegating  authority and doing some things, and that strategy as well, how you manage,  how you lead your people, we will be talking about strategic leadership as well in this class, is part of your strategy. You know? I think one of the things is that that we need to realize is we often can't execute a strategy alone. We need a team  of people to help us. They bring different diversity and different perspectives and different thoughts and different ideas and all those things work together to make  the organization or the firm or the business or whatever term you want to use to  make them successful. So I thought this was very interesting, and I just want to  focus in on this real fast, this idea. I don't want you to to gloss over it in the book, but strategic management borrows many ideas from ancient uses of strategy  over time. So remember that there's, there's an idea from ancient times that is  destroying one's enemies for the effective use of resources. And again, when we

talk about competitiveness, when we talk about competitive advantage, when  we're talking about strategy, this is what we are talking about. We are talking  about the idea that you have a competitive advantage and your strategy is  superior to your competitor strategy, which is going to help you win. You know,  we don't like to think of I personally don't like to think of things in terms of a zero  sum game where there's winners and losers, but when it comes to strategies,  you definitely want a competitive advantage. So I just wanted to mention that,  you know, obviously military strategy is a big part of this, but, but you know that  that form of strategy is different from what strategic management is as a field of  study. So one of the things that I want to just point out is that the book talks  about the interdisciplinary nature of strategic management, and that's absolutely true. So if you think about strategic management as a field of study, you know  the book mentions like that includes physics and literature and literature and  chemistry, Computer Science and Engineering and other things, and literature.  And all these things are part of a good strategy, strategic management field. And that's true. Remember that strategy and strategic management and planning  and executing and all these things, they. Um, they they are interdisciplinary, and  they can be focused not just in the business world, but in our personal life as  well. So that's one of the other things that I want to make clear, that as you're  going through these lectures, these modules, as you're reading this, this  material, you know, if it has a focus in your personal life, or it has a focus in your business life, you can apply it to other areas of your life as well. So you know,  Ford is a key person, and again, I'm not going to read the book, but what I do  want to say is that let's remember that strategic management has been around  for a very long time. Moses certainly is the example used in the book. Certainly,  Jesus had a strategy. The disciples had a strategy after Jesus was crucified for  evangelizing the world. Strategy has been around for a very long time. And  these lessons that that, you know, that were taught in the Old Testament, that  Jesus taught us, certainly through conflicts and military, wars and things like  that, and through philosophers from every single different area, we had a good  understanding of what strategy is. So, you know, there's some questions here  that that I think you should spend some time answering and thinking about,  certainly thinking about, as you read the chapter, like, what do you think was the most important event related to strategy in ancient times? You know, I'll leave  that up open for your interpretation. I would, I would argue for myself, the spread of Christianity is was a very interesting strategy. And you know, as a Christian,  I'm fully invested in evangelizing the world, as I know you all are. So that is  something that I personally find compelling. But you can answer that on your  own, for yourself. So, you know, one of the things that I want to point out is that  there are some criticisms about strategic management, and one of the criticisms is it's hard to plan for the future when the future is so unpredictable. And one of  the things that is that you, if you take any of my other classes, or get to know 

me, you'll hear me say a lot, is businesses like stability, businesses like  predictability. So that's, that's a term you'll hear me say, or that's a phrase you'll  hear me say over and over and over again, is business like stability?  Businesses like predictability. But there's a criticism around strategic  management, because it says, How can you plan for the future when you don't  know what's going to happen people, I mean, I'm sure there was somebody  maybe. I mean, somebody always predicts something, but, but nobody could  have seen COVID Coming. Nobody could have fully prepared for countries  around the world, shutting down for the travel agency, getting decimated by 90% for a reduction in travel. Nobody could have anticipated these things. And the  question is, how do you plan the future is so unpredictable? Why do you waste  waste your time preparing and making plans in the future when the future is so  unpredictable. Well, I would argue you need a place to go, right, and that if you  keep your vision and you keep your goals specific, but you keep it, you surround that vision, you're always working toward that vision, which is an aspirational  view of where you want to be, then you can always do strategic planning, and  you can always work toward that goal. The other thing is, you know, is that it's  important to think critically about the strategic planning process, to think critically about your business. Certainly, the most successful people in the world are  constantly thinking about how to be better, how to gain that competitive  advantage, what their strategy is, how to deal with people, all those things  they're constantly, constantly, constantly working on that I met with somebody  last night who one of the questions they said to me, and this is a highly  successful organization, and one of the questions they asked me was, hey, what can we do better? Where we should where should we be going in the future?  What should we be doing now, I would argue that they have a pretty robust plan  about where they are going, and yet they said to me, what can we do to get  better? Where should we be going? So they're constantly reevaluating their  place in the marketplace, where to go and what to do to get there. So that's a  that's very powerful, and that's something that we need to consider, we need to  think of. So we will be going through the strategic management process in very,  very, very, very big detail, very detailed approach to going through that process.  But again, remember, this is an overview. So we're not going into all the detail  that we can, but you need to understand the strategy and performance. You  need data to inform where you're going to go, what you're going to do, and you  need to understand your mission and vision and how they shape the firm  strategy as well. And then one of the ideas around scanning the environment,  understanding those external influences and those and those forces that that  are on your business is a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities  and threats. We will be going through that this class as well. Just remember that  that you need to know where you're going, and then you need to have a  strategic formation. And you need to under understand how to form a strategy. 

So you know, again, the book for strategic formation talks about Apple, which I  talked about in my introduction, where they talk about the integration of products and how everything works seamlessly together, and that's one of their  strategies, and that's their formation is around that. So remember that strategic  management is a process that we need to manage change so you have to  constantly be environmentally scanning and understanding what's going on in  the environment, or you will be in trouble. So make sure that you understand  change and that you take appropriate action and that you're not afraid to pivot,  like my mask example, or the hand sanitizer, example. Sometimes when the  environment and environmental factors and environmental forces come on, you  you have to pivot your strategy. So you know, the goal is survival. The goal is to  gain a competitive advantage over the other people in your space, and the goal  is to make sure that you're constantly monitoring performance. So we will be  going through all that in this, in this book, and in the next lesson, we will be  talking about assessing organizational performance that will align with the  textbook as well. We're going to be talking about mission, vision and values,  about what those mean about competitive advantage. We'll be talking about  competitive advantage in more detail, and we'll be talking about assessing  organizational performance as well, and what it means to assess it, and what  tools exist to do so. So before we close, as we will do every single time, I just  want to take a moment to pray, so please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father.  Thank you so much for this class. Thank you so much for the individuals that will be going through these next 12 modules with with me, and this journey that  we're about to have together. Lord, I pray that as we discuss strategic  management, that we can help assimilate the concepts that we are learning into  our Christian worldview and use it to be powerful disciples for you Lord, so help  us not only to learn about strategy within organizations, within businesses,  within firms, but also organizational strategy within our personal life and  especially within our spiritual life as well. So Lord, I pray you'll bless this class.  You'll help them to be able to focus over next 12 modules, over these lectures,  and you will help me to communicate the message that you will have me  communicate in Jesus' name. We pray. Amen. Thank you so much. I'll see you  back here for our module two, where we will be talking about assessing  organizational performance. Thank you. 



Last modified: Monday, June 23, 2025, 12:41 PM