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Partial book profile

Strategic Analytics Levenson

A step-by-step framework for integrating enterprise (business) and human capital (people) analytics so organizations can diagnose the true, systemic causes of strategy-execution failure and build the capabilities that create competitive advantage.

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What it’s about

Strategic Analytics tackles a persistent paradox: organizations have more data than ever yet still struggle to execute strategy and improve organizational effectiveness. Alec Levenson argues that the root problem is fragmentation—business leaders run enterprise analytics while HR runs human capital analytics along separate tracks, each seeing only part of the elephant. His remedy is a disciplined, ordered diagnostic: start with the sources of competitive advantage, then conduct enterprise analytics (organization design, capability, culture), and finally human capital analytics (job design, individual capability, attitudes/motivation) as needed. Built on causal modeling rather than ROI worship or correlational data mining, the approach shows how to focus scarce time and resources on the handful of factors that are truly strategic instead of the thousand things that are merely 'nice to have.' Grounded in decades of applied research at USC's Center for Effective Organizations and illustrated with real case studies (PwC, Frito-Lay, Boeing, banks, tech companies), the book is a pragmatic, jargon-light guide that makes analytics a 'team sport' uniting business and HR to advance strategy execution and organizational effectiveness.

The through-line

Who it’s for
A business or HR leader, frontline manager, or analyst who wants to improve strategy execution and organizational effectiveness and make better, evidence-based decisions.
The problem
Despite mountains of data, the organization keeps falling short on executing its strategy because business and HR run separate, incomplete analytics that never diagnose the real systemic causes. The reader feels overwhelmed by data yet uncertain which analytics to use, frustrated by talking past their counterparts, and anxious about defending decisions with only correlational or ROI-driven evidence.
The plan
  1. Step 1: Identify the sources of competitive advantage and where strategy execution falls short (competitive advantage analytics).
  2. Step 2: Conduct enterprise analytics—diagnose organization design, capability, and culture at the enterprise/business-unit/process level.
  3. Step 3: Conduct human capital analytics as needed—diagnose job design, individual capability, and attitudes/motivation.
  4. Build and test a causal model, using stakeholder interviews first and statistics only where warranted.
  5. Focus recommendations on the factors that truly build and maintain competitive advantage, aligning design, compensation, and culture.
The payoff
Better-informed decisions that channel budget dollars where they best support strategy. · Business and HR aligned, working together as a team on integrated diagnostics. · Structural problems surfaced and addressed rather than papered over.

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Additional reading

  • Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital · John W. Boudreau and Peter M. Ramstad

    The book's concept of finding pivotal roles by looking at where improvement has the biggest impact, not just average contribution, is cited as a key principle for focusing analytics.

  • Designing Matrix Organizations That Actually Work · Jay R. Galbraith

    Galbraith's work is cited as a key reference for understanding organization design, decision rights, and the structural challenges that are a central focus of the book's 'Enterprise Analytics' step.

  • High Commitment, High Performance · Michael Beer

    This book is referenced to support the principles of high-involvement work design, a key concept in the author's analysis of how job and organization design drive performance.

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