Strategy according to Henry Mintzberg

1
Strategyaccording toHenry Mintzberg

• Business Strategy
• Business Administration
• The University of Winnipeg

2
The Strategy Concept IFive Ps for Strategy,
California Management Review Vol. XXX, No.1,
Fall 1987

• Henry Mintzberg
• McGill University

3
Strategy can mean aPlan

• Conscious, purposeful consideration in advance of
  future actions.
• Strategy gt future actions
• Does that mean any plan is a strategy?

4
What makes a planstrategic

• The time horizon it covers?
• Its purpose / future implications?
• The type of actions it covers?
• The type of choices it implies?

5
Strategy can mean aPloy

• Short-term, specific-focus plan of limited scope
  designed to achieve a particular (usually
  competitive) result
• For example, a negotiation strategy

6
Strategy can mean a Pattern!

• Consistency whether intended or not in a pattern
  of past actions!
• Past actions gt implicit strategy!

7
Strategies are both plans for the futureand
patterns from the past- Henry Mintzberg,
Crafting StrategyHarvard Business Review,
July-August, 1987
8
Planning and Realization

• Strategies as plans are not always realized
• Realized strategies are not always the result of
  a plan!

9
Strategy can mean a Position

• Organizations relationship to its environment
  (markets and competitors)
• What an organization stands for, wants to become,
  or just is
• Air Canada Canadas National Airline
• Amazon.com the Internet-retailing portal
• Wal-Mart the lowest price place to buy
• almost anything

10
Strategy is a position a means of locating an
organization in an environmentHenry
Mintzberg, The Strategy Concept I Five Ps for
Strategy, California Management Review, Vol.
XXX, No.1, Fall 1987
11
Strategy can be a Perspective

• A collective view of the organization itself and
  how the world around it works
• For example
• The University of Winnipeg is a liberal arts
  institution.
• Access and Excellence are compatible goals.

12
Interrelating the Five Ps

• An emerging Pattern can be recognized, and
  formalized into a Plan for the future
• Strategy as Plan or Pattern can lead to a
  Strategy as Position and / or Perspective
• A sequence of Ploys can become a Pattern
• Perspective can constrain all the others

13
The Strategy Concept IIAnother look at why
Organizations need Strategies California
Management Review Vol. XXX, No.1, Fall 1987

• Henry Mintzberg
• McGill University

14
Organizations need Strategiesto Set Direction

• Strategy determines where an organization is
  going
• but shouldnt become a straightjacket which
  completely precludes interesting side trips!

15
Organizations need Strategiesto Focus Effortand
promote Coordination

• Strategy helps to get everybody on the same
  page pulling together over time and throughout
  an organization
• but shouldnt preclude individuals from
  experimenting with new ideas!

16
Organizations need Strategiesto Define themselves

• Strategy helps to make an organization
  comprehensible
• but can something as complex as a (large)
  organization be summarized and well understood
  simply through statement of an abstract concept?

17
Organizations need Strategiesto Define themselves

• BCE Graphic

18
Organizations need Strategiesto provide Coherence

• Strategy helps an organization to make sense of
  its environment, and protects it against
  distraction so that it can get on with what it
  has decided to do
• which can be a bad thing if the environment
  changes!

19
In summary..Organizations need Strategies..

• To set direction
• To focus effort and promote coordination
• To define themselves
• To provide day-to-day coherence and help make
  sense of the environment
• but too much of strategys benefits can be a bad
  thing!

20
Strategy according toHenry Mintzberg

• What seems to be the fundamental purpose of an
  organization in this approach to strategy?