Strategy Safari
I once again finished reading a book. I might have to revisit it from time to time though because the content is complex and challenging. It fits wonderfully with my current MBA course “Strategy” though. The book my am talking about is “Strategy Safari” by Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel. Without writing too much here, the book talks about the following strategy formation schools:
\- The Design School (think SWOT ;)), is about finding a match between internal capabilities and external possibilities. You design your strategy.
\- The Planning School: “formal procedure, formal training, formal analysis, lots of numbers.” As they put it in the book: “Take the SWOT model, devide it into neatly delineated steps, articulate each of these with lots of checklists and techniques, and give special attention to the setting of objectives at the front end and the elaboration of budgets and operating plans on the back end.”
\- The Positioning School: Something very famous from this are Porter’s generic strategies and his five forces model as well as the value chain. You need to position yourself well in relation to your environment.
\- The Entrepreneurial School: There you have a visionary. That’s practically it ;)
\- The Cognitive School: This one is more psychology. The idea is that you don’t have one set environment. We shape our environment based on how we look at it, what our experiences are and what else currently is going on within us. You can’t say “this is how it is”.
\- The Learning School is first of all very en mode at the moment and second … Mintzberg is a very big supporter. So it’s covered a lot. Good reading. The idea: You learn over time. Enable learning.
\- The Power School: We long for power. Some have it, some don’t. Sometimes a company has power to shape a market. Power is important. Hence … The Power School.
\- The Cultural School: You can’t do something on your own in a company. There is a culture that has deep routes and you can’t just change it with the flick of a switch.
\- The Environmental School: Here not you are the actor, the environment is.
\- The Configuration School: “All of the above” You configure and you transform. You take the best of all worlds.
In the last chapter they integrate everything a bit again, saying though, that the real integration happens in the head of the reader. They can’t force that. It’s really good to read and I like it that they critique every single school and also look at the weak sides. It’s a very good overview of where Strategy Formation has been and where it is going to. Now I will have to see how much of this is covered in the MBA Course … or how much more ;)
Update : Ok, the book was very good and the course seems to be very thorough and covers lot of ground. This will be interesting.