CRAFTING STRATEGY

HENRY MINTZBERG

PLANNING / CRAFTING?

PLANNER
Future is being

considered
Someone who analyzes
Someone who can

transfer knowledge
Someone with no

experience can perform

the job

CRAFTSMAN
Past, present as well as
future is being considered
Someone who senses
Someone with tacit
knowledge
Someone with long
experience, dedication and
commitment can perform
the job

STRATEGIES NEED NOT TO BE DELIBERATE

THEY CAN ALSO EMERGE

STRATEGIES NEED NOT BE DELIBERATE

THEY CAN ALSO EMERGE
Intimate connection between thought and action

Thinking

When thinking leads to action

When action drives thinking

Action

Deliberate Strategy
Emergent Strategy

EXAMPLE
In 1886, a pharmacist John Pemberton, who

fought civil war.

To get relief from pain, people got addicted to

drugs and alcohol

Planned to make alcohol free brain tonic which would help

people to get rid of their addiction

A new reality emerged!

QURAT-UL-AIN SALIK
142104

Effective Strategies develop in all kinds of

strange ways
Develop in strangest places
Develop in most unexpected means

Examples of emergent strategies NFB

1. Personal

Strategy
.Morale boosting theatrical shots
.Animated experimental films by

Norman McLaren

2. Consensus

Strategy
1952, arrival of Television

in Canada
Reluctant senior
management
one filmmaker took
initiative and open path for
others
Strategy arouse
spontaneously by many
independent decisions

Grass-roots strategy making

Grow like weeds in garden
Take root in all potential parts
Where people have capacity to learn
Resources to support that capacity

Most effective Strategy

( deliberately emergent)
Most effective strategy

Deliberation
combined Control

with

Flexibility
Organizational learning

Most effective Strategy

( deliberately emergent)
1.

Umbrella strategy

2. Process strategy
Senior management

Senior management sets

broad outline
Leaves specifics to others

controls the process of

strategy formulation
Leave actual content to
others
Implementers should
also be formulators.
Craftsman should be
strategists (hands should
be with minds).

Strategic reorientations
Brief
Quantum leaps

Conventional view of strategic management

Continuous change
But how and when?

Fundamental dilemma: reconcile factors for change

and stability gain operating efficiency + adapt

accordingly

Quantum leaps
Major shift in strategic change
Very rare
Jumping outside of the comfort zone or boundary
Power looms air jet looms
Petrol cars hybrid cars

Cycles of change
Innovative companies
Change for creativity
Stability to find order

in resulting chaos
Example:
National Film Board
1940, concentrated production

films for war effort.

1950, advent of television
(turned to new medium)
1960, experimental films and
social issues.

Reasons of strategic failure

1. Mixing the two strategies at
same time

2. Adopting only one at the expense

of other

No creativity: imitable

competencies ;
Volkswagen work and
world passes by them.
Only creativity: identity
crises, and no
distinctive competency.

BUSHRA JAVAID

To manage strategy is to craft thought and actions, control

and learning , stability and change
Popular view sees strategist as a planner or visionary.
Mintzberg view strategist as
A pattern recognizer
A learner
A person who find strategies in pattern.

What does it mean to craft strategy?

The words associated with craft:
Dedication
Experience
Involvement
Personal touch
Mastery of detail
Sense of harmony and integration

Manage Stability
To manage strategy , is not so much to promote change as to

know when to do so.

Obsession with change is dysfunctional.
Formal planning program desensitizes the organization to real
change.
Strategic planning recognize
to program a strategy already
created not to create a strategy.
Strategic planning is analytic in nature based on decomposition
while strategy creation is process of synthesis.

Planner role in strategy formation

Programming strategies
Feed ad hoc analysis
Stimulate others to think strategically
Can be strategists too, as long as they are creative thinkers.

Detect discontinuity
The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting the

subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in future.

This challenge can be dealt with only by minds that are attuned
to existing pattern able to perceive important breaks in them
The trick is to pick the occasional discontinuity that really
matters
In dynamic environment, the reorientation of business require
vision and involvement and it is what the essence of strategic
management

Know the business

Sam Steinberg , the founder of the Steinberg Chain discussed

his competitive advantage :

Nobody knew the grocery business like we did. Everything
has to do with your knowledge. I knew merchandise, I
knew cost, I knew selling, I knew customers. I knew
everything, and I passed on all my knowledge; I kept
teaching my people. Thats the advantage we had. Our
competitors couldnt touch us
Managers of strategy have to train themselves to see, to pick up
things other people miss.
The people who are having the peripheral vision are best able to
detect and take advantage of events as they unfold

Manage Patterns
A key to managing strategy is the ability to detect emerging

pattern and help them take shape.

To create the climate within which a wide variety of strategies
can grow, building flexible structures, hiring creative people,
defining broad umbrella strategies and watching for pattern that
emerge

Reconcile change and continuity

Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is a time to sow and a time to

reap
Managers who are obsessed with either change or stability are
bound eventually to harm their organizations.
As pattern recognizer , the manager has to able to sense when to
exploit an established crop of strategies and when to encounter
new strains to displace the old.

Tracking strategy
Initiated a research project at McGill university, tracked the

strategies of 11 organizations
First stepdeveloped chronological lists and graphs of the
most important actions taken by each organization
Second stepinferred pattern in these actions and labeled as
strategies
Third stepidentify the distinct periods in the inferred
strategies
Used interviews and in- depth reports to study what appeared to
be the key points of change in each organization strategic
history.

Three themes
The interplay of environment, leadership and organization
The pattern of strategic change
Process by which strategies formed

Conclusion
Crafting strategy like managing craft, requires a natural

synthesis of the future, present and past.