Success Quote by Michael Porter

Strategy, in Porter-speak, isn’t a glamorous brainstorm; it’s an exercise in choosing what you are for and what you’re willing to disappoint. “Sound strategy starts with having the right goal” is a quiet rebuke to the modern habit of treating strategy as a toolset - frameworks, OKRs, roadmaps - that can be bolted onto any ambition. Porter flips it: if the goal is wrong, every subsequent “smart” move is just efficient self-sabotage.

The intent is corrective. In corporate life, goals are often negotiated into mush: “growth,” “innovation,” “customer centricity.” They sound virtuous, and that’s the problem. A goal that can’t offend anyone can’t guide trade-offs, and trade-offs are the whole job. Porter’s subtext is that clarity is not a branding exercise; it’s a constraint. The “right” goal isn’t the most inspiring one, but the one that makes choices possible: which customers, which value proposition, which capabilities, which arenas to exit.

Context matters because Porter’s influence rose alongside the managerialization of business - the belief that performance comes from managerial technique. His work insists that competitive advantage is less about being excellent at everything and more about committing to a distinctive position. Read that way, the quote is also a warning about metrics: if your goal is “maximize shareholder value” this quarter, you’ll get strategies optimized for extraction, not endurance. If your goal is “be the best,” you’ll chase rivals forever. A strategy can’t be better than the aim it serves; it can only be more faithful to it.