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Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement Page xi (11 of 208)
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xi
Preface
about exactly where a new idea came from. But once you do, again
and again you fi nd strategic intuition. And by understanding how
it works, you can do it more and better yourself.
By the nature of its subject, this book spans so many fi elds that
it deals with each one in a very summary manner. I do not claim
mastery in these fi elds but only an understanding of how strate-
gic intuition applies to them. Strategy itself is a mongrel fi eld with
no pure pedigree in any of the traditional academic disciplines.
So too with this book. And the brevity of treatment of each fi eld
forces me to skip over many of the people and works of scholar-
ship that have helped inform my thought. As a result I can name
only some of the works I consulted as citations in the pages that
follow. As for people, here I name just a few.
Marcia Wright of Columbia University taught me the value of
history as an empirical discipline. Lynn Ellsworth, a fellow scholar
in development, served as my fi rst example of the proper blend of
Kuhn, Schumpeter, and von Clausewitz in a fi eld of action. A sec-
ond example was Steve Kerr, chief learning offi rst at General cer fi
Electric and then at Goldman Sachs. When I discovered Steve and
what he did, in a very real sense my main ideas came true.
At Columbia Business School, Ray Horton gave me a warm
welcome and key counsel for translating theory into useful ideas
for practitioners. Paul Glasserman helped me gain rapid expo-
sure to the full range of creative faculty research and its practi-
cal implications. Amar Bhidé has taken up Schumpeter’s mantle
with his research on modern entrepreneurial achievement. And
Dean Glenn Hubbard especially encouraged me to pursue the
implications of my work for teaching strategy. Myles Thompson
of Columbia University Press offered precious editorial guidance,
as well as the prize chance to launch the new imprint of Columbia
Business School Publishing. Marina Petrova of Columbia Univer-
sity Press worked myriad wonders on the manuscript itself.
Last but not least, my students at Columbia Business School
contributed much to this work. It is no exaggeration to say that
I learned as much from them as from all the scholarly sources
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