The fall and Rise of Strategic Planning

Henry Mintzberg positions this article in the Classical vs. Emergent strategy debate
and challenges the efficacy of formalised strategic planning by indicating that such an
approach has led to the fall of strategic planning because its rigid and inflexibility
means “strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking”. The article promotes a new
way of planning which is an emergent strategic outlook that is hailed as bringing back
the rise of strategic planning.

Although the article is promoting an emergent form of strategic planning and states
that “most successful strategies are visions, not plans” it doesn’t totally discredit the
need for formal planning. Miller and Cardinal (1994) states successful organisations
will anticipate and address environmental turbulence through strategic planning.
Whilst the article supports this view, it offers an expansion by stating such planning
should not be to identify one right strategy but instead a supporting tool for the
decision maker’s to use for the consideration of issues. The essence of strategy
making conveyed in the article is through learning. The emergent process looks at the
strategy process as a journey which involves active experimenting and interlinks
Strategic Analysis, with Development and Implementation (Scholes et al 1999), so
supporting the stance “we sometimes act in order to think”. The analogy used the
describe the planning activities of the formalised approach whereby they go off to the
mountains and through activities “strategies are articulated by 5pm” illustrates that
there is an innovative and imaginative element which the rational formal process lack
and leads to its failure to synthesize experiences.

Figure1: Mintzberg Basic Design School Model

Figure1 shows the formulation of the design model to which some of the emergent
tones of the article can be placed. It shows an input into the creation of strategy is
Managerial values which are gained from experiences, the article represents this by
showing current planning as strategic programming “articulating and elaborating
strategies that already exist” and the strategy-making process should be: "capturing
what the manager learns from all sources”
De Geus (1988) in his article “Planning as learning” echoes some of what is adopted
by the author and which provide clarity on the role of planning in learning. The
article talks of the need to learn and produce new perspectives but De Geus gives us
the guidelines on how to ensure that Learning produces the results and concludes “the
only relevant Learning in a company is the learning done by those who have the
power to act”. The usefulness of using Mintzberg’s notion and embellishing it with
the guidelines is that it conveys the real purpose of effective planning, which is to
change the mental modes that decision makers carry. It detaches itself from the
perspective view on Planning School which is to create machine like autocratic
environments for strategy. This shows that although the Design School and Planning
school emerged from the mid 60’s era their difference was the application of
imagination/innovation in the design school.
Strategy as a pattern ".that is a consistency of behaviour” is an environmental pull
notion that is presented by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel in the book Strategy
Safari. Using patterns supports the idea of the Learning school which the article is an
advocate for. Such a descriptive outlook exposes some of the flaws that these
mechanisms bring to organisations. Strategy is defined as a race to an ideal position
and a creation of a unique and valuable position by Prescriptive writer Porter.
However the same analytical approach that Porter favours does not deliver the unique
and valuable position because it has been “dependant on the preservation and
rearrangement of established categories” and so there is not a formation of anything to
birth a new unique strategy.

The 5p’s literature surrounding Mintzberg’s work gives an insight into his views and
can be used to understand the foundations and assumptions of the article. Strategy
being a plan, ploy, pattern, position and perspective can be used to explain why there
is a dislike for rational methods to forming strategy because it seeks to find the “right
answer. Assumption that strategies are formulated before executed is conveyed
through his view of strategy needing a planner and then a doer. It’s contradictory of
strategy being a pattern and perspective because the formal ways don’t give such
outcomes. By seeking to ensure planners work outside of the strategy goes against the
traditional role play involved in strategy planning and implementation. However as
the article develops and an emergent tone is introduced, it treats implementation either
as an issue of gaining prior group commitment through coalitional decision-making or
strategy emerging in an almost-implemented form within the firm (Bourgeois &
Brodwin 1984).

Attention is paid to the planning of a strategy and no emphasis is placed on the

implementation of that strategy. The author writes that formal planning provided
managers with a method of “carrying out those strategies” and this was one of its
downfalls. This encapsulates his view on strategy, the outcome. The assertion that
planning should produce “broad visions”, to adapt to a changing environment, follows
the view of Bryson et al (2009) that “strategic planning is a pulling together a variety
of actors and actants”, the result of which cannot be narrowly defined. The means of
achieving that vision incorporates experiences of “others throughout the organisation”
and this illustrates an assumption of an organisational culture promoting consensus
and support that will enable everyone to agree on a strategy based on their individual
learning’s. Ambrosini and Bowman (2003) learned from their research into
managerial consensus and corporate strategy that perception of consensus of corporate
strategy has more influence on behaviour than formal statements of strategic intent.
Schuler and Jackson (1987) linked competitive strategy with the characteristics of
managers and one of the conclusions was the need for managers to abandon the status
quo and adapt their strategies to the market place. The relevance of this outcome is
that it provides an extension on the work of Ambrosini and Bowman and shows
details of the environment and mindsets in which emergent strategies can work.

Baldwin et al 1997 discuses evolution of learning strategies and identified “the

dynamics of rapid change and heightened competition mean that organisational
success will be increasingly dependant on learning” This forms an assumption of the
article and is an underlying reason why the author is writing the article.
Strategy making needing to “function beyond the boxes to encourage the informal
learning that produces new perspectives” is a key foundation influence for the article.
Although a realistic approach to planning and getting a fresh new strategy, it is built
on the assumption that employees can synthesize useful elements of their experiences
and conveys those into strategies. The emphasis is placed on cognitive information
processing and elaborating on incoming information from issues faced in the daily
grind to produce a different strategic outlook for the firm.

The article focuses on the reasons why formal planning has failed however the
argument used to promote the alternative style of planning lacks depth and isn’t as
convincing as could be on how it can be used to create advantage. By saying that
organisations ought to adopt an approach where broader visions are conceived is
strength of the article because it offers a rough guidance of the destination they need
to arrive at and then allows for that strategy to be moulded according to what can be
identified from learning to give them and this offers perspective, which is inline with
what the 5P’s. Promoting such an approach shows that to get the best strategy,
companies have to employ their own experiences and learning because that is what
sets them apart from another organisation in the same industry.
“Real strategic change” requiring the invention of new things and innovation is a
constant message throughout the article. However there is a failure on the author’s
part to explain to us the relationship between strategy and innovation. “The forces that
embed innovation into an organisation are quite different than those that guide
strategy” (Bodini 2010). The author could have used managerial frameworks,
organisational and culture literature to identify how to facilitate innovation before
combining it to produce the best strategy.

There are convincing parts of the article that warns of tunnel vision and recognise
planning must involve both analysis and thinking. Examining the fallacy of
formalisation is a part of the article voices Mintzberg’s views regarding bureaucratic,
analytical planning process which deceives managers into thinking that they are
planning strategically and hence improving future organizational performance.
However there are simplistic solutions offered on how to best maximise strategy
planners. “Changing labels won't improve poor processes or teach planning skills to
those who lack them” (Power 2004) whilst this a valid statement the article does go
on to mention the “planners as catalyst” who pose questions and “challenging
conventional assumptions”. This provokes the argument that perhaps this whole
article missed the trick because it focused on roles and talked in depth about what was
wrong and perhaps should have focused on the design processes and introduced
elements such as scenario planning because it tackles changing of mindset and brings
awareness of the potential costs and benefits and offers “a continuous improvement
approach to strategy” (Wright 2000).

In conclusion, the article presented and argument for strategic planning in which the
author was a proponent for a non rationalised planning method. By bringing attention
to the issues of the formal mechanisms we became aware of the problems it brings.
Through the use of easy to understand examples we were told of a new way, but not
management application was incorporated in the article to show how to achieve the
benefits of the learning viewpoint. Although the article was written with a bias it was
able to show that strategic planning is not only about the formal mechanisms but
quintessentially it’s about experiences from those in the business used to set a long
term vision.

Word Count: 1649

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