ABSTRACT
Power is the most widely used as a strategic tool and, for many organisations, it's the only tool they know how to use. The art of concentration of power is less common and less well understood but can be devastatingly effective. Given the dominance of strategy based on power, it's tempting to assume that stronger is inevitably better than weaker. In particular, what weaker partners can bring to a collaboration is speed, agility, foresight, concentration of power in specialist areas, higher levels of innovation and a faster rate of change. Stronger players become vulnerable as soon as their momentum becomes decoupled from the operating environment – in other words, as soon as the environment changes, and there is nothing for all that power to act on. But one approach to strategy is completely built around understanding the concentration of power, and it is extremely popular in Japan.
