Crafting strategy

Editor's Notes

• #4: Imagining someone planning strategy…. Now imagining someone crafting strategy…
• #5: Planning strategy draws the wrong picture as to how strategy comes about. Instead, strategies are usually crafted using skill and dedication until the strategy is perfect. This is Mintzberg underlying statement for his study Introduce Minztberg’s philosophy about his thesis (by comparing the experiences of a single craftsman, potter to the ….) Describe potter’s work…. Given conclusion: managers are craftsmen & …. We will explore this metaphor by looking how strategies get shaped as opposed to how they are supposed to get shaped
• #6: He first points out that strategy is as much of a plan as it is a reflection of the past and finding patterns (courses of actions) in the organization - Plan: A set of intended actions made by people or individual to achieve a goal. - Pattern: This definition focuses on the consistent behavior over time, whether or not intended - Ask audiences’ thought of strategy & competitor’s strategy - Strategy, it turns out, is one of those words that people define in one way and often use in another, without realizing the difference
• #7: + Apple’s plan: releases few but highly anticipated high-end products. Best user’s experience With a high rate of innovation and emphasis on excellence in product design + Apple’s pattern in action over series of iPhones from first generation to iPhone 5, it realized that it must size small enough for user to easily use 1 figure to control the screen
• #8: Everything that has been written about strategy making depicts it as deliberate process… Then example of the potter in the studio, rolling the clay to make a wafer-like sculpture…  Action has driven thinking: a strategy has emerged Out in the field, the example of a salesman… => Eventually opens up a new market  company has changed strategic course
• #9: An intended strategy is the strategy that an organization hopes to execute. Intended strategies are usually described in detail within an organization’s strategic plan An emergent strategy is an unplanned strategy that arises in response to unexpected opportunities and challenges. Sometimes emergent strategies result in disasters. Emergent strategies can also lead to tremendous success.  A realized strategy is the strategy that an organization actually follows. Realized strategies are a product of a firm’s intended strategy (i.e., what the firm planned to do), the firm’s deliberate strategy (i.e., the parts of the intended strategy that the firm continues to pursue over time), and its emergent strategy (i.e., what the firm did in reaction to unexpected opportunities and challenges). In other cases, firms’ original intended strategies are long forgotten. A nonrealized strategy refers to the abandoned parts of the intended strategy
• #10: - Explain the example - Give the conclusion: His second point in the article is that strategies can emerge or be formed. While most companies try to for a strategy, sometimes strategy emerges from a mistake or an action with unexpected consequences
• #11: - Somewhat similar to his second point, his third point mentions that strategies can form in strange ways. - Accidents, boredom, and random events can end up forming or inspiring strategy. The form for a cat collapses ….. Did Mark Zuckerberg set out to build a billion-dollar company with more than six hundred million active users? Not hardly. Zuckerberg’s original concept in 2003 had a dark nature. After being dumped by his girlfriend, a bitter Zuckerberg created a website called “FaceMash” where the attractiveness of young women could be voted on. This evolved first into an online social network called Thefacebook that was for Harvard students only. When the network became surprisingly popular, it then morphed (changed) into Facebook, a website open to everyone. Ironically, Facebook’s emphasis on connecting with existing and new friends is about as different as it could be from Zuckerberg’s original mean-spirited concept.
• #12: - These strategies all reflect, in whole or part, what we like to call a grass-roots approach to strategic management…  This is why some companies allow lower level employees to take part in strategy making of strategy implementation - Umbrella strategy is where a top manager lays broad guidelines and lower level employees make more specific decisions. Process strategy is where management is in charge of strategy formation, but leaves the actual content of it to other people.
• #13: Strategy: (explain: Org set direction, layout courses of action,establish guidelinue) No stability => no strategy => no future, no pattern.
• #14: Strategic revolution: World continues to change: sometime slowly, occasionally in dramatic shifts. Slowly or suddenly, org’s strategic orientation moves out of sync with its env.
• #16: Strategist responsiblilities: dictating brilliant strategies for everyone else to implement, recognize the importance of thinking ahead or the needed for creative vision. Additional view of strategists Redefine strategist: collective entity who made up of many actors whose interplay speaks in organization. => find strategies no less than create strategies. Do not spend time in reading reports or industry analyses. Are involved or responsive to learn about their organizations and industries through personal touch. Craftmen: Dedication, experience, involvement, sense of harmony (hoa hop) & integration. Manage Stability: Most of time is managing stability instead of formulate strategy. => making org to be effective as possible in pursuing