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Strategie deliberate vs strategie emergenti
Oggigiorno, quando parliamo di ‘strategia’ potremmo avere delle difficoltà ad intenderla come pianificata, deliberata ed a lungo termine, se solo consideriamo quanto velocemente il contesto socio-economico stia cambiando a livello locale ed internazionale. Mintzberg e Waters, due famosi autori americani di business e management, hanno introdotto un altro concetto di strategia, che sembra cogliere la complessità attuale. Se vuoi saperne di più, leggi l’articolo direttamente in inglese!
Nowadays, when we talk about strategy it is very difficult to think about a long-term deliberate strategy, which means planned and intended. This is because the world is changing very fast and pressures from within the industry sectors and from the macro environment might oblige us to totally review our strategy frequently and in the short term.
In 1985 Mintzberg and Waters, two American famous authors on business and management, introduced the concept of emergent strategy. This is a type of strategy that is carried out irrespective of any managerial or organisational intended strategy or in the absence of any managerial or organisational intention. They also stated that the emergent strategy is the context where much effective strategic learning might take place, as the manager is open, flexible and responsive.
They identified several types of strategy along the continuum from purely deliberate strategy to purely emergent strategy. Each one is the result of specific internal dynamics within the company or a reaction to the pressures from the external environment. One that is particularly interesting is the umbrella strategy: general guidelines for behaviour within the company are given by the top managers, but also some degree of autonomy is left to the managers who are expected to act in line with the deliberate strategy. If managers behave differently, whether intentionally or unintantionally, the top management might have three types of reaction: they could stop them, they could ignore them for a while, or they could adjust to them. Exactly as if we had one arm outside the umbrella: either we could pull it in, or we could leave it out for a while to get wet, or we could move the umbrella to cover it.
All in all, as managers we may ask ourselves how much of “deliberate” and/or “emergent” there is in our strategy. This type of relfection might help us work more effectively.
