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Welcome to the HBR IDA cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish.

You can't blame organizations for trying. They're faced with so many challenges and

competitive pressures at such a rapid pace. It's only natural. They respond with

lots of strategic planning and initiatives, carrying those out our teams of talented

employees who get increasingly overwhelmed. You would think that all that

herculean effort would pay off. What's surprising is how often it does not. One out of

every four firms in the S&P 500 earns long-term returns on invested capital below the cost

of that capital. Why do they have so little to show for so much sophisticated strategy

and all those talented employees? Well today's guest has some ideas that largely start with

pairing back and simplifying. In his thinking, an initiative is only worthwhile if it creates

value for customers or employees or suppliers. If not, it should fall by the wayside. Felix

Overholter G is a professor at Harvard Business School. He's also the author of the new book,

Better Simpler Strategy, a value-based guide to exceptional performance. Felix, thanks for coming

on the show to talk about this. My pleasure to be here. Why are business leaders facing such

strategic overload? What does that concept mean to you? There are so many pressures on businesses

today. Just think about everything that is going on. The digital transition, the pandemic,

global supply chains that don't quite work the way they're supposed to, changing consumer

taste, changes in technology, changes in preferences. You have global competition, you have supply

chain disruptions, you have climate change. It's really never ending. And so the question

...