What to consider when ‘crafting’ strategies?
Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences
October 16, 2023
After this session, you should have a solid understanding of
What is strategy?
[Good strategy] does not pop out of some strategic-management tool, matrix, triangle, or fill-in-the-blanks scheme. Instead, a talented leader has identified the one or two critical issues in a situation—the pivot points that can multiply the effectiveness of the effort—and then focused and concentrated action and resources on them. R. Rumelt (2011)
Form small groups and reflect on the hallmarks of a good strategy and the hallmarks of a poor strategy based on what you have learned so far.
Take 10 minutes, craft one slide for each aspect and prepare to present your findings.
According to R. P. Rumelt (2012) a good strategy …
Good strategies tend to look simple and obvious in retrospect.
According to R. P. Rumelt (2012) key hallmarks of poor strategy are:
Ignores the power of choice and instead tries to reconcile a variety of conflicting demands.
Poor strategy has many roots, but the key ones are: the inability to choose, and template-style planning R. P. Rumelt (2012).
What characterizes good strategies (i.e., what is the basic underlying structure)?
At its core, strategy is always the same: discover the crucial factors in a situation and design a way to coherently coordinate and focus actions to deal with them.
Form small groups and take 10 minutes to consolidate your answers to my questions on Mintzberg (1978).
A strategy is not a fixed plan, nor does it change systematically at pre-arranged times solely at the will of management. Mintzberg (1978).
Crafting strategies that revolve around the interplay of the environment, the organizational operating system (i.e., bureaucracy), and leadership.
Strategy: consistent behaviors by which the place in the environment is established. Strategic change: responses to environmental change, limited by the bureaucracy and mediated by leadership.
Intended strategies
and emergent strategies.
Deliberate strategies are intended strategies that get realized.
Unrealized strategies are intended strategies that do not get realized, perhaps because of unrealistic expectations, misjudgments about the environment, or changes in the environment.
Emergent strategies are realized strategies that were never intended, perhaps because no strategy was intended at the outset or perhaps because they were got displaced along the way.
Realized strategies refer to actually “observable pattern of behavior”, consistent over time based on a continuum between deliberate strategy and emergent strategy.
Strategies have a life cycle, which is coined by waves of change and continuity.
Thus, a strategy cannot be a fixed plan, or being updated at a predetermined time.
Overall, the dichotomy between formulation (and strategy-maker) and implementation (and subordinates who implement) makes little sense (Mintzberg 1978).
The following thoughts on strategy formation are based on Mintzberg (1987).
The process by which effective strategies are created is better captured by thinking of strategy as a craft, rather than as a planning process (Mintzberg 1987).
Why does strategy as a craft better reflect the process by which strategies are formed?
Like potters at the wheel, organizations must make sense of the past if they hope to manage the future. Only by coming to understand the patterns that form in their own behavior do they get to know their capabilities and their potential. Thus crafting stategy, like managing craft, requires a natural synthesis of future, present and past. Mintzberg (1987)
Managing stability,
detecting discontinuity,
knowing the business,
managing patterns,
and reconciling change and continuity (Mintzberg 1987)
The following questions are designed to review and consolidate what you have learned and are a good starting point for preparing for the exam.
Read Barnett and Salomon (2012) and make notes on following questions:
Entertainment or writing perceived as trivial or superficial.