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discontinuities are prevalent as elements of the
The Rise of Strategic Thinking approach to strategy-making that they advocate.
The term “strategic thinking” is often used so widely Ralph Stacey,’ approaching strategy through a dif-
and generically today within the field of strategy that ferent lens-that of the discoveries of the “new sci-
it risks becoming almost meaningless. Rarely do those ence” of quantum physics and complexity theory-
who use the term define it. Most often, it appears that reaches much the same conclusions as the authors
the term “strategic thinking” is used to denote all already cited. Though he is sceptical of according a
thinking about strategy, rather than to denote a par- major role to future vision as a driver of strategy, he
ticular mode of thinking, with specific characteristics. sees strategy-making processes as successful when
Within this broad usage, authors have used the term they are based on “designing actions on the basis of
almost interchangeably with other concepts such as new learning”, rather than following “pre-pro-
strategic planning or strategic management. Ian grammed rules”. Strategic thinking, he asserts, is not
Wilson,’ for example, in describing the evolution of “an intellectual exercise in exploring what is likely
strategic planning processes, observes: to happen . . . strategic thinking is using analogies
and qualitative similarities to develop creative new
“The need for strategic thinking has never been greater.. . This
ideas”.
continuing improvement (in strategic planning) has profoundly
changed the character of strategic planning so that it is now more This dichotomy between the analytic and creative
appropriate to refer to it as strategic management or strategic aspects of strategy-making constitutes a pervasive
thinking.” theme in more detailed treatments on the subject of
strategic thinking as well. Raimond’ divides strategic
Those who have devoted attention to defining the
thinking into two modes, “strategy as intelligent
term “strategic thinking” have often used broad,
machine” (a data-driven, information processing
seemingly all-inclusive definitions, such as the one
approach) and “strategy as creative imagination”.
offered below by Nasi:’
Nasi7 differentiates between the “hard line” ana-
“Strategic thinking extends both to the formulation and lytical approach, with its traditional focus on com-
execution of strategies by business leaders and to the strategic petition, and the “soft line” approach emphasizing
performance of the total enterprise. It includes strategic analysis, values and culture.
strategic planning, organization and control and even strategic
These more specific discussions, taken together,
leadership. Therefore, strategic thinking basically covers all
those attributes which can be labeled “strategic”.
still leave the practising strategist interested in trans-
lating the concept of strategic thinking into actual
Though these broad uses of the term may be pervasive, business practice with several challenges. First, this
they are not consistent with the sense in which early literature focuses more on what strategic thinking is
proponents of the concept of strategic thinking use not, than on what it is. Though this is helpful in
the term. For Henry Mintzberg,3 recognized as one of distinguishing strategic thinking from other concepts
the foremost advocates of strategic thinking, the term within the strategy field, it stops far short of the kind
is not merely alternative nomenclature for everything of careful delineation of the characteristics of strategic
falling under the umbrella of strategic management; thinking needed to facilitate its implementation by
rather, it is a particular wuy of thinking, with specific managers and its development by educators. Second,
characteristics. Mintzberg has devoted much of his the literature draws a sharp dichotomy between the
attention to articulating the difference between stra- creative and analytic aspects of strategy-making,
tegic thinking and strategic planning. Strategic plan- when both are clearly needed in any thoughtful strat-
ning, he argues, is an analytical process aimed at egy-making process. Finally, the literature leaves one
programming already identified strategies. Its out- with a strong sense that strategic thinking is clearly
come is a plan. Strategic thinking, on the other hand, incompatible with strategic planning as we know it.
is a synthesizing process, utilizing intuition and cre- Yet, we know that putting processes in place to ensure
ativity, whose outcome is “an integrated perspective that managers attend to strategic issues, amidst the
of the enterprise.” Rather than occurring hand-in- day-to-day crises that so capture their focus, is essen-
hand, traditional planning processes tend to drive out tial. Thus, we cannot merely abandon all attention to
strategic thinking, Mintzberg argues, and as a result, the process of strategy formulation-we need to know
impair rather than support successful organizational how to transform today’s planning process in a way
adaptation. that incorporates, rather than undermines, strategic
C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hame1,4 two other highly thinking.
influential strategy theorists, join Mintzberg in his This article attempts to address each of these issues
indictment of traditional approaches to planning by outlining what I believe to be the elements of stra-
which they describe as “strategy as form filling”. tegic thinking and then relating these elements to
Though they use the term, “crafting strategic archi- alternative views of strategic planning processes
tecture” rather than “strategic thinking”, the same which support, rather than impede, strategic think-
themes of creativity, exploration, and understanding ing.
In ten t-focused
Strategic thinking is intent-driven. Hamel and Pra-
halad have repeated this point for nearly ten years
and have revolutionized our thinking about strategy
in the process:
FIGURE
2. Rep~~oir~-~~ild~n~.
pioneered by Emery and Trist at Tavistock, seeks to In my own experience, working with managers in
put the “whole system” in the room for a dialogue executive education settings, the very simple exercise
lasting several days. Participants leave with a greatly of story writing has proven to be a powerful way of
enriched sense of their role as part of the larger helping managers develop a strategic intent for their
system. Here, too, innovative firms are experimenting own business. My approach is to ask a group of man-
with this approach as a way to make planning pro- agers to write two cover stories for a leading business
cesses more inclusive, with the goal of reducing the magazine five years hence, in which they tell the story
time required by traditional “cascade” approaches to of where they are and how they got there. One story
strategic change. is entitled “Renaissance at Company X,” the other,
Motorola, for instance, gathered 25 key personnel “The Dark Ages at Company X”. I am always
within one of its divisions from around the world to astounded and inspired by the creativity and clarity
meet in Tokyo for three days with the goal of “creating of their efforts.
a future toward which they could all work”.Z7 Work- The thinking in time element benefits from the com-
ing together, they began the process by analysing both monly used technique of scenario building. Here,
the larger global environment and industry trends. again, the focus is not on the final scenarios them-
Next, they traced the history of the business unit and, selves, but the creative thinking process that creates
in combination with their environmental assessment, it. As Schoemaker notes:
created a shared sense of what they needed to keep “Good scenarios challenge tunnel vision by instilling a deeper
and to lose from their past, and invent for their future. appreciation for the myriad factors that shape the future. Scen-
They created an outline of a desirable future, identi- ario planning requires intellectual courage to reveal evidence
fied constraints, and how to overcome them. They con- that does not fit our current conceptual maps.. What may
initially be bleak scenarios could, in fact, hold the seeds of new
cluded the event with the creation of a set of task forces,
business and unrecognized opportunity. But those opportunities
each armed with an action plan for implementation. can be perceived only if you actively look for them. In addition
Hewlett-Packard’s manufacturing facility in to perceiving richer options, however, we must also have the
Greeley, Colorado, U.S.A. used a similar partici- courage and vision to act on them. As F. Scott Fitzgerald noted,
pative approach, bringing together all plant manu- ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
conflicting ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the
facturing managers and a cross-section of line workers
ability to function.’ ” (p. 40)‘”
to establish a set of long-term initiatives for the
facility. The use of scenario planning-type techniques helped
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