About the Authors
Gary Gessel
Kirk Davis
Co-Authors, Gary and Kirk, business leaders-turned-educators, empower today's business leaders by turning opportunities into a Strategy to Win.
Meet the authors
Gary Gessel has over 35 years of executive experience. He has led teams through growth and change for decades, most recently as the President and CEO of Milgard Windows and Doors. In the Strategy to Win course and book, he shares lessons from his career on how to create a strategy that wins.
Kirk Davis is the Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing Puget Sound. He has worked with hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses in his 25-year career, also serving as a CFO, business advisor, educator, and business banker. He shares insights from working with many businesses across many industries.
About the Strategy to Win Online Course
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The Strategy to Win online course was created after Gary and Kirk worked together on a consulting assignment. Kirk recognized that Gary possessed unique knowledge and skills for helping businesses grow and succeed. The Strategy to Win course and book answer the question of how today's business leaders can create a strategy that will overcome the friction and challenges of the current business environment.
The course consists of 10 lessons based on the 10 Elements of a Strategy to Win.
To simplify the approach of the work involved in creating a strategy, we organize the 10 Elements of a Strategy to Win into 3 distinct phases.
Phase 1 is a focus on creating your strategic objective. Phase 2 consists of elements 2 - 4 to explore the research for your strategy. Phase 3 consists of elements 5 - 10 to create your playbook. Don't offer your team ideas, offer them a well-thought out playbook that they begin executing from the moment they receive it.
3 Ways to Approach the Course
As a leader, you can approach the Strategy to Win course in three different ways. First, if you are building a strategy from scratch, you can take each lesson sequentially. Second, if you want to strengthen your current strategy, you can focus on a particular lesson that you decide. They don't have to be studied sequentially. Third, you can use Strategy to Win as an executive leadership development curriculum for your company. The lessons are self-study and self-paced. You can use senior leaders as mentors and discuss the ideas and work of each lesson.