strategy – a context for different approaches

Have you ever wondered about all the different approaches to strategy out there? Ever since I have been facilitating strategy workshops I have been looking for a view to pull all of the different views into a single view. Well I have found a good one. I am reading “Strategy Safari” by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel, who collectively bring massive experience to bear on the question. They define 10 schools of thought which they describe and critique in the book. I am finding this an enjoyable and enriching read. The writers offer a model to relate the 10 schools of thought that I want to share here.

In the centre they show strategy formulation as a black box. This is how most of the schools view the creation process; a mystery or irrelevant.

Only the Cognitive School try to figure out how strategy is formulated, from a psychology perspective, though without much success.

The Positioning School, stepping off a foundation of economics and military history, looks back at historical data which it analyses and feeds into the black box.

The Planning School looks ahead using systems theory and urban planning, but just ahead to schedule strategies created in the box.

The Design School uses a deliberate process, vested in the CEO to create an explicit, simple and clear view of a strategy to be implemented, without recourse to changes from emerging insights.

The Entrepreneurial School looks beyond the immediate to create a unique vision of the future through an intuitive process.

The Learning and Power schools look below, at what underlies strategy, focussing on particulars rather than universals. The Learning School looks on the ground, sometimes in the grassroots for learnings to guide an emerging view of strategy. The Power School looks lower (but not deeper), under rocks or underground into the places organisation don’t usually want to look, at the power and political games.

The Cultural School gazes down from above, enshrouded in clouds of beliefs.

High above all this, the Environmental School looks at the process from an even greater elevation, as in a reversed telescope.

The Configuration School looks at the whole process and categorises the organisation in terms of life-cycle and change process.

I like this model because it creates a context for the strategy material I read.  As I think about it I have a sense that I would like to change it around a little to suit how I implement strategy with my clients.  But first I am reading to integrate the richness of the information behind the model.  I think it would be a good idea for me, in subsequent posts to reflect on my understanding of the key points of each of the ten schools.