How is it that the most carefully-laid business strategies can go horribly wrong when put into practice? Robert Rowland Smith's answer, based on years of experience in high-level consultancy, is that 'reality eats strategy for breakfast': strategy, based on projections and assuming business is a rational pursuit, can't deal with the messy reality of life. More helpful are these practical questions that can help you plan what to do when your business comes into contact with reality. From learning the lessons of the past (rather than fixating on the future) to finding out what your business is really about, he explains the real-life factors that lead to success or failure. Including many new examples from the front line, from all around the world, The Reality Test will help you establish yourself as more effective and distinctive than your competitors, who follow the same rigid theoretical avenues.Whether you ask 'Are you making enough of your weaknesses?' or 'Are you 100% productive 100% of the time?', it's time to stop living in strategy La-La Land and face reality.

Robert Rowland Smith was for seven years a Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He now advises blue-chip companies, teaches at London's School of Life, and writes, among other things, a column on 'life lessons' in the Evening Standard and a regular column in the Sunday Times. He contributes to the Philosophy Bites podcast series and speaks regularly on BBC radio. His books Breakfast with Socrates and Driving with Plato have been widely translated.