Recently a colleague doing some consulting for a government department,
remarked to a staff member that a particular plan would be difficult to
implement. He was met with a look of incredulity and the comment, "We have
nothing to do with implementation, - we're policy".
This comment rings true in Henry Mintzberg's important book, The Rise and
Fall of Strategic Planning. In a reflective and thorough overview of all the
basic planning literature, Mintzberg explores the reality that nearly anyone
involved in managing and planning actually knows but is hesitant to face, -
that planning rarely accomplishes what it is intended to do.
Mintzberg painstakingly builds the case that our use of the term,
"planning", is frequently imprecise. We usually mean managing, controlling
or decision making. Formalized plans often avoid the reality that strategy
formation evolves intuitively rather than from a linear and formalized
rational process. Probably the most striking point is the questioning of the
core dogma of planning, - that analysis produces synthesis.
This, Minzberg categorically denies and spends several chapters building his
argument. The old SWOT theory, the examination of Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats, - seldom is effective, Mintzberg says, because it
is rooted in an organization's current perceptions. Planning also sets up a
conflict between managers, who have authority and a more intuitive and
flexible approach gained in the fray of the daily battle, and planners, who
have time and techniques but less understanding of the changing scene, and a
need to document and control. Both sides blame the other as either too
ineffective or too stupid to get it right.
The author's most devastating example of a planning disaster is the battle
of Passchendaele, where military planners formulated tactics suitable for
dry land. They had never visited the field where thousands fell to their
death in a sea of mud.
Planners typically make pleas for flexibility and patience, but in the end
Mintzberg sees the search for the" one best way" as flawed. Planners are
seldom as detached as they claim.
Even a marketing approach won't work. In a typical witty example, Mintzberg
speculates whether a buggy whip company might decide, in taking a proactive
marketing approach, that it was really in the flagellation business.
Vision, in contrast to the analytical approach of planning, depends upon the
ability to see and feel. Mintzberg cites the work of Nobel prize winners
Sperry and Ornstein, whose studies of the brain assign a different role to
the right cortical skills. It is the role of synthesis, which focuses on the
big picture. Synthesis is a different process. As Mozart says, "I can see
the whole ... at a single glance in my mind, as if it were a painting or a
handsome human being".
Because analysis is not synthesis, strategic planning is not strategy
formation. Rather than being the "one best way" strategic planning is an
oxymoron.
Does this mean that all planners must now join the ranks of the unemployed?
Mintzberg would not eliminate them, but recommend that they enter the
planning process at an appropriate time and place. The time comes after the
strategy has been formulated by those who actually lead and manage. The
place is preeminently in mature industries whose operations are stable.
simple, capital intensive and controlled.
Mintzberg's name for them is machine industries. Among the roles for the
planners here are communication and interpretation, scheduling and control.
Here is the proper place for logic in action.
Other types of organizations need a different approach. Among these are
entrepreneurial organizations who depend on the vision of their leader or
founders; professional organizations such as hospitals and universities
where special areas of knowledge drive new initiatives; and what are termed
"adhocracies" such as new high tech software companies, whose products pass
from initial concept to market entry in a few months. The role of the
planners here could better be described as strategic programming.
Mintzberg asks for new approaches to strategy formation but he doesn't
explore actual tools in this book. Mind Mapping might be one of them. Its
holistic approach which integrates right and left cortical skills is a
simple and effective way to break through traditional linear planning
methods. By branching out from a central vision, a Mind Map depicts the
vision and integrates its components in a holistic way. Concepts are not
boxed in and can expand in
many directions.
Mind Maps also have the right pedigree. They are thinking tools directly
based on the brain research of Sperry and Ornstein, which Mintzberg posits
as central to the understanding of actually creating and implementing sound
strategy.
Dynamic Thinking
