Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden's suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether.
"It's very interesting that Tyco's response to accounting rumors or baseless innuendos seems to be, instead of responding to the accounting rumors, basically revamp the strategy of the entire company," said James Chanos, president of Kynikos Associates, a hedge fund that is short Tyco's stock.
Yet fulfilling his pledge also could put him at odds from the start with generals who worry that acting too quickly may jeopardize the progress achieved since President Bush sent in more forces and General Petraeus revamped the strategy two years ago.
After years of declining sales and store traffic, Borders shook the publishing industry when it filed for Chapter 11 protection in February, promising to revamp the company's strategy for the digital age.
James P. Evans, Best Western's president and chief executive, revamped the advertising strategy, winning approval in October from Best Western's board to more than triple 1999 TV expenditures.
Since then, Mr. Pilara has helped revamp the fund's investment strategy by reducing its heavy concentration in beaten-down industries like metals mining.
In May, ThyssenKrupp announced a strategy to revamp the business, a plan that included major divestitures of crucial assets.
In a letter to Mr. Cleghorn, Mr. Ackman said Pershing Square did have a broad strategy to revamp the company, one that he said he made clear in an "initial meeting" and "subsequent communications".
This week, the fund's executive board heard the first formal proposal on quota reform since Rodrigo de Rato, the IMF Managing Director, unveiled his medium-term strategy to revamp the organisation last September.The IMF's quotas are a distorted mirror of today's economy, partly because they must do three things at once.
The economic conservatives also praise Mr. Rumsfeld's efforts to review and revamp the nation's war-fighting strategies, looking for savings along the way before blindly demanding a huge budget increase.
"We're working out strategies on how to revamp the show and push it forward," said Johnson.
