The Well-Timed Strategy: Managing the Business Cycle for Competitive Advantage

Concluding Thoughts

“Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.”

—Publius Syrus

po·lyph·o·ny (n): A style of musical composition in which two or more independent melodies are juxtaposed in harmony.

There is a “sweet spot” in the expansionary phase of the business cycle where virtually all activities of the corporation move—and should move—in the same direction. Managing a company during this sweet spot is as easy as steering a ship in calm seas.

Of course, the true measure of the corporate executive team comes not in these bullish times. Nor does it come during a symmetrically bearish “dead spot”—that dark recessionary interval of the business cycle when virtually all functions have been put in reverse and corporate executives wait behind ...