Strategy Safari
Strategy is really a safari, I am convinced of that after reading the excellent book of Henry Mintzberg et al. Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
Mintzberg divides the strategy process as conceived by different schools:
- The Design School: strategy formation as a process of conception
- The Planning School: strategy formation as a formal process
- The positioning School: strategy formation as an analytical process
- The Entrepreneurial School: strategy formation as a visionary process
- The Cognitive School: strategy formation as a mental process
- The Learning School: strategy formation as an emergent process
- The Power School: strategy formation as a process of negotiation
- The Cultural School: strategy formation as a collective process
- The Environmental School: strategy formation as a reactive process
- The Configuration School: strategy formation as a process of transformation
The first three schools are prescriptive in nature – more concerned with how strategy should be formulated than with how they necessarily do form.
Is strategy created or emergent? The answer is both and every strategy process has to combine various aspects of the different schools. Strategy Safari is a great book and it should be read several times to really understand its profound implications on the meaning of business strategy.