Title: Skills of a master strategist

Authors: Suresh Singh

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business and Management, Northeastern Illinois University, CBM 127, 5500 North St. Louis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60625, USA

Abstract: Excellent tennis players are not those who possess good rackets but those who know how to use a racket well. Without skills, tools are of little use. Unfortunately, strategic management literature and teaching emphasise tools over skills. Scant attention is paid to the strategist as an individual and the skills needed to be a master strategist. More importantly, the crucial link between the tools and the skills has been lost. Building upon literature review from various fields, this paper addresses these gaps by delineating core, domain independent skills of a master strategist and putting forth a mapping between these skills and commonly used strategy tools to re-establish the link between the two.

Keywords: strategist; strategy tools; strategy skills; strategy development; strategic thinking.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2021.115614

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2021 Vol.14 No.1, pp.81 - 94

Received: 08 Dec 2020
Accepted: 05 Feb 2021

Published online: 11 Jun 2021 *

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