TL;DR

Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)

Who should read this: leaders; tech folks who live in trade-offs (PMs, staff+ engineers, founders); anyone tired of “strategy” as vibes and slideware.

I didn’t expect a field manual, but I got one!

Rich Horwath’s Deep Dive is a compact, repeatable way to think (and act) strategically, without the usual MBA jargon. It’s pragmatic; it’s visual; it insists on choices (what you won’t do matters as much as what you will do).

Strategy, per Horwath, isn’t a once-a-year retreat. It’s a daily discipline:

  • generate insight → allocate scarce resources → translate into action

The big idea

  • Strategy ≠ aspiration/best practices/caution. Goals and “we should be more like X” are not a strategy; neither is avoiding hard trade-offs. Strategy is “the intelligent allocation of limited resources through a unique system of activities to outperform the competition.” (Note the word unique; sameness is death.)
  • You create advantage two ways: do different things, or do similar things differently (keep asking both questions). Most firms that outperform pick a lane and commit.

What I’ll be stealing

  • Ten strategic thinking skills, useful as a self-audit and a team hiring rubric.
    1. Strategy
    2. Insight
    3. Context
    4. Competitive
    5. Value
    6. Resource
    7. Modeling
    8. Innovation
    9. Purpose
    10. Mental Agility
  • Insight sources: Context, Customers, Questions, Models (CCQM). If you don’t reserve calendar time for insight, you won’t get any (the book even cites execs who block “think time”).
  • Value disciplines: pick one (Product Leadership, Operational Excellence, or Customer Intimacy) and let it cascade into everything.
    • Straddle two? Enjoy mediocrity.
  • Strategy Filter: pre-agreed criteria for what gets resources (purpose, business design, strategy fit, impact).
    • Say “no” faster; say “yes” with receipts.
  • G.O.S.T. without mush: Goal, Objective, Strategy, Tactic—stop mixing them. Then pressure-test execution against the five failure modes (faulty strategy, unclear resourcing, poor communication, weak accountability, no calibration).

Trade-offs

  • Resources come in three flavors—tangible, intangible, human—and not all are equal.
  • To anchor a strategy, resource must be hard to copy, generate customer value, be sustainable, and lack easy substitutes.
    • Translation: protect the crown jewels (brand, talent, proprietary capabilities) and prune the rest.

My 7-day playbook

  • Day 1–2 — Context scan: run an OODA loop on market, customer, competitor, and company; sketch two models (Five Forces and SWOT/Opportunity Matrix). Deliver one provocative insight per area.
  • Day 3 — Choose a value discipline: pick one (product, cost, or solution) and write the consequences (what we double down on; what we stop).
  • Day 4 — Draft the Strategy Filter: 6–8 criteria aligned to purpose, business design, strategy, impact; socialize and adopt.
  • Day 5 — StrategyPrint v1: one-pager of WHAT/HOW/WHO/IMPACT plus an Activity System Map. (Force connections from tactics back to strategy; kill or fix or fund accordingly.)
  • Day 6 — Resource audit: map key resources to the four tests (hard to copy, value, sustainable, no substitutes).
  • Day 7 — Tune-up cadence: put a recurring “strategy tune-up” on the calendar (weekly/biweekly); debate with data; assign owners; close the loop.

Favorite frameworks

  • Strategy Design (7 prompts): Purpose, Value, Context, Who, What, How, Advantage. (Yes, in that order.)
  • Strategy = Acumen → Allocation → Action: ask daily: What’s the key insight? Where will we focus? How will we win?
  • Insight = info × info (non-obvious): if an “insight” doesn’t change a decision, it’s a restatement, not an insight.

Why “Deep Dive”

Most strategy books admire problems; Deep Dive arms operators. It’s relentlessly practical, anti-buzzword, and structurally simple enough to teach your team; then hold them to it. If you’re stepping into leadership (or founder mode), this is the upgrade.

PS: I’m starting a series for books like this—non-tech on the surface, but rich with operational leverage.