The top management of a high-technology venture must continue to carefully align the forces that drive the company's evolution in its highly dynamic environment. These are highlighted in the "strategy diamond," which helps align what top management says (the official corporate strategy) with what the company actually does (strategic action). It also helps align what it takes to win (the basis of competitive advantage given the company's chosen product-market position in the industry) with what the company has got (its distinctive competencies). Such alignment determines whether each of the minimum winning games in the sequence that leads to wining the maximum winning game (becoming a highly valued established growth company) is likely to be won. Winning today's minimum winning game sets the stage for tomorrow's minimum winning game, and it serves as a major step along the path that leads a firm to succeed in the attainment of its maximum winning game. In high-technology environments, however, the alignments between the dynamic forces will inevitably come under pressure and begin to diverge, leading the venture's strategy diamond at some times to resemble more of a "rubber band" model. Such divergences between the dynamic forces provide signals that the external selection environment is changing significantly, and they require that top management makes sure to proactively maintain alignment. Top management's capacity to do so depends heavily on the quality of the venture's culture (its internal selection environment). An important feature of the strategy diamond is it simplicity. The venture's top and senior executives should easily be able to remember its simple language: Are we doing what we are saying? Have we got what it takes? Is our culture change-ready? Addressing these simple but fundamental questions in
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