We all know those two clichés about the elephant, the first about its encounter with some blind men (1,190,000 hits in Google) and the second about it being in the room (69,700,000 hits).
The reason sayings become cliché is that they highlight truths in such a compelling way that, for a time at least, we get a kick out of passing them on. Though in the process we run the risk of losing the impact of the truth.
Here is an elephant cliché story about some leaders who were all doing strategy. Even those who thought they weren’t, were as ‘no strategy’, is. No-one really knew what strategy was, beyond a vague notion that Greeks did it and it was important for success. Then some academics and consultants studied it. They each saw quite clearly what it was and wrote heaps about it. But of course there are none so blind as those who will not see. So they argued with each other and fell into the first cliché. The situation persisted for decades until it became the second.
Along came three wise men, Henry Mintzberg, with Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Llampel, who looked from afar and wrote a book offering a full picture of strategy. In their writing they left room for the beast to develop and grow.
They define strategy by considering five facets.
- The Plan: How you formulate what you intend to do.
- The Pattern: What you actually did, of failed to do either deliberately following the plan or allowing your actions and direction to be affected by your situation through a process of learning.
- Your Position: the location of the products you create in the markets in which you operate.
- Perspective: Your fundamental way of doing things. What Peter Drucker called “Your theory of the business”.
- The Ploy: A specific manoeuvre intended to outwit your competition.
By plotting the first four approaches against each of other in a matrix the writers defined four basic approaches to creating and executing strategy. They also defined ten schools of strategy and showed how these schools underpinned the four approaches.
- Strategic Planning is supported by the Planning, Design, and Positioning schools.
- Strategic Venturing is supported by Learning, Power, and Cognitive schools.
- Strategic Visioning is supported by entrepreneurial, Design, Cultural and Cognitive schools.
- Strategic Learning is supported by Learning and Entrepreneurial schools.
The discussion and implementation of strategy leads to a knife edge. For every advantage in the strategic approach, there lies a trap to for the unwary.
The good news is that the little elephant was rescued from this predicament.
- Strategy sets direction and keeps the organisation cohesively on track. But strategy can also be a set of blinkers which prevent an organisation from seeing the changes and learning to adapt to the new environment.
- Strategy focuses effort, preventing the chaos that happens as people pull in different directions. But focus can lead to groupthink.
- Strategy defines the organisation, providing a short hand to define and distinguish the organisation. But sharp distinctions may be based on over-simplification and loss of understanding of the rich complexity on which the organisation really is distinguished, leading to a thin stereotyping.
- Strategy provides consistency to reduce ambiguity and provide order. Your strategy is a theoretical structure, a representation of reality, to simplify and explain your world and against which you can initiate actions. However simplification comes at the cost of detail and creativity thrives on inconsistency and the unexpected combination of details.
Creativity and enterprise thrive in energetic area between chaos and stagnation. Strategy is not about the chief executive as strategist, up in the tower, conceiving the big ideas while everyone gets on with the detail. Neither is it about an annual off-site meeting in which a winning strategy is agreed and set in concrete for the year. Stability is important. But situations change, environments lose stability, windows of opportunity open and close and niches disappear. When this happens, our valuable strategy becomes a liability. This is why strategy is so closely related to the management of change. And we know that describing change is much much easier than making it happen.
Therefore the judicious application of focus is the delicate balance required for successful strategic management.
[…] Strategy provides consistency to reduce ambiguity and provide order. Your strategy is a theoretical structure, a representation of reality, to simplify and explain your world and against which you can initiate actions. However simplification comes at the cost of detail and creativity thrives on inconsistency and the unexpected combination of details. You can read the full article here. […]
Hi Stephen
An inspiring piece as it made me grab a copy of Mintzberg’s Strategy Safari.
I hold the view that strategic and the operational planning are part of the same process. The two cannot be divorced. The one informs the other. Responsible team members viscerally and logically know their main strategy and they know how their operational activities support their strategy. They scan the environment and markets on an ongoing basis and emergent strategy develops on the run. They adapt written strategies whenever necessary and do not wait for formal strategy sessions once or twice a year.
Albert
Hey Albert
Thanks for this positive feedback. I agree wholeheartedly with you. A criticism of the Design and Planning schools was that the strategy agreed by the CEO at the end of the process was ‘it’ for the year and the plan was to be followed under strict control. But this left little room for learning. More than this, it left little room for the ‘visceral and logical’ grasp of the strategy where it counted the most. Ongoing scanning for emerging strategies happen in the learning, cognitive and perhaps entrepreneurial schools. Of course without direction, focus and a level of consistency your strategy becomes ‘whatever grabs whoever at the time’ which will not be sustainable.
The approach you describe is a combination of a number of schools which is great. So the authors have provided a framework and a vocabulary for understanding the actual processes being used.
Stephen