A brief context behind my decision to attend Harvard Summer School: The past years, having the chance to work for Microsoft I was "exposed" to the theory of Growth Mindset which was the most important point of the cultural refresh that Satya Nadella, CEO, brought to Microsoft 4 years ago. Growth Mindset theory is inspired by Stanford professor Carol Dweck whose work discovered that human capability is not fixed at birth but malleable based on effort. (you can read more here and here) On top of that, I had the chance to read Ray Dalio's Principles, a book I highly recommend to everyone no matter the industry they are working or their background. Growth Mindset and Dalio's principles have influenced a lot the way I approach many things in my life, one of them being how to support a lifelong learning lifestyle.

So in a nutshell, this July I decided to attend Harvard Summer School and more specifically the course of Strategic Management. In case you don't have the full picture, Harvard Summer School offers graduates and professionals courses in many different fields. The selection process is not as strict as attending the "real" Harvard and the tuition fees are lower, but still a respectable amount of money.

Attending Harvard Summer School turned out to be a truly transformational experience from many perspectives. Spending one month in the Harvard campus navigating the libraries and classrooms is a truly inspiring experience on its own. I had the great opportunity to connect with people across the globe coming from totally different backgrounds but with very similar mindset and goals in life, which is really refreshing. It helps you realize that you are not alone in this world and also makes you see the "big picture" which is that the world is literally one's oyster and that the future projections you have made about your career are -probably- not as "informed" as they should be. I personally discovered that when I had dinner with 3 people whose jobs were: Fintech Entrepreneur / Healthcare AI researcher / Foreign Policy Advisor.

From a strictly academic point of view, I found the famous “Harvard case study” approach to be really helpful on translating abstract academic theories to tangible business decisions so I fell in love with reading complex case studies. However, I have to admit that I didn’t find the academic experience challenging enough. Maybe it is because it was a Summer School course where things are always a bit more relaxed. Maybe it is because I chose the wrong course. Doing a Strategy course while you already have an MBA means that you will definitely find a lot of theories overlapping, so my kind advice in case you are considering attending Harvard Summer School is to pick a course which is either totally non-related with your academic degrees or a soft-skill focused course that will assist you further develop as professional (for example the Leadership course).

However, during those 3 weeks I had the chance to get involved in some great academic discussions around Strategy topics and theories which I was not aware of and found fascinating. Below, I am listing 4 Strategy theories that clicked on my mind either because I have encountered them in my daily professional life or because I consider them great ideas to further explore and champion in my team.

I am pretty sure that for you to be interested in this article, this probably means you are working for a large organization or you are running a start-up and you have definitely done in the past a forecasting exercise. Does it ring a bell? Budget forecasting, sales forecasting? I am sure it does. Forecasting is a very important part of every business and it is a very interesting exercise. There are thousands of papers around forecasting, my personal favorite and highly recommended are Tetlock’s Superforecasting and Taleb’s Black Swan. Spoiler: forecasting is an art and not a math exercise. So when we have to connect forecasting with strategy, MIT Sloan Management Review suggests we create strategic narratives which actually means to connect the dots of the company’s past and present with the future in order to construct narratives that will “fit” with the DNA of the organization and unlock great opportunities. But not in the usual way which is to project future tied with your interpretations of the past. What if you re-imagined the past? This means that you have many more futures to imagine, right? You don’t have to allow the past to dictate the future. Focus on creating strategic narratives that link elements of the company’s past to present issues as well as a reimagined future. The more work strategy teams devote to link past present and future, the more they are able to craft strategies that depart significantly from the status quo.

All the latest studies that examine Industry ecosystems, like for example Silicon Valley, show that the leading organizations are following each other in whatever move/decision/new product they are launching. This NY Times piece is very insightful. The theory of coherence premium actually suggests that this is myopic. The pressure to grow the topline is so intense that most companies pay too much attention to expansion and enough to building differentiated capabilities. A few companies start from the opposite direction: they figure out what they are really good at, then develop those capabilities (three to six) until they are the best in class. For them, strategy becomes a matter of aligning what they do well with the right market place opportunities.

Another hot topic in the field of Strategy and Entrepreneurship is the theory of competitive advantage. Again, there are thousands of papers written on how organizations can build long-lasting competitive advantages that will enable them to better place themselves in the market. And moreover, how the competitive advantage is being connected with the pace of innovation of an organization, how easy it is to launch new products or to raise barriers for your competitors to dominate the industry. In this field, I am sure you must have heard about Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma and I would also suggest Gladwell's piece on Xerox.

However, the dominant idea in the field of strategy – that success consists of establishing a unique competitive position sustained for a long period – is no longer relevant. Organizations need to embrace the notion of transient advantage instead, to launch new strategic initiatives again and again, and creating a portfolio of advantages that be built quickly and abandoned rapidly. Success will require a new set of operational capabilities. Companies in high-velocity industries must learn to cycle rapidly through the stages of competitive advantage.

Another topic which is very close to forecasting is competitor’s analysis and more specifically strategic predictions of their reactions and decisions. This area is mostly dominated by the field of Game Theory (I highly recommend The Joy of Game Theory) but this paper suggests that the most usual competitive analysis tools become unwieldy in the real world and in order to understand how competitors will respond to your next move, you have to evaluate the situation in their terms and not yours. For example, did you know that studies show that usually companies DON’T respond to rivals’ moves and that most firms review just a few obvious countermoves which are usually easily predicted by their past responses!

I really hope you enjoyed reading this article and you learnt something new. At the end of the day, this is the most important part of the experience. As always, I am looking forward to reading your comments!