Learning 1, Planning 0 Reply to Igor Ansoff

Author(s): Henry Mintzberg

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 Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 12, 463-466 (1991)

RESEARCHNOTES AND COMMUNICATIONS

In a way, it is unfortunate that Igor Ansoff has of the design school-and there remain many,
responded to my article on the design school. either people who did not move on to other
That is because in my pat world of schools of prescriptive schools that I call planning and
thought on strategy formation, his work slots positioning, or else moved back after the former
into the planning school and not the design took such a beating from the mid 1970s-would
school per se (and so I shall address it in a welcome Igor Ansoff as their spokesman.
forthcoming book on that school). But we vote in learned journals with our
This may seem to be splitting hairs-in a sense fingers and our stamps, and so that is who they
it is-but to my mind there are two fundamental get. Besides, while Igor may spend more time
differences in the premises that underlie these in his reply criticizing me and defending himself
two schools (both evident in Igor's work as well than supporting Andrews, his work does build
as that of Ken Andrews). on the other premises I associated with the
First, while one focuses (almost obsessively) design school. And Igor is certainly an eminent
on the CEO as "architect" of strategy, the other spokesman for the role of so-called "rationality"
gives an awful lot of influence to the staff in strategic management.
planners. And second, more importantly though I prefer not to enter into a elaborate rejoinder
closely associated with the first, while one here. I will let my other writings stand on where
school treats "SWOT" (strength and weaknesses, I stand, including my original article on the
opportunities and trends) as a general framework, design school, a long paper on all 10 schools
the other elaborates it into a detailed formal (Mintzberg, 1990, which, I should add, sought
model, of an extensive sequence of clearly to place all 10 schools into their limited contexts),
delineated steps supported by a host of analytical and other empirical pieces on the processes of
techniques (nowhere more evident than in Ansoff, strategy formation (e.g., 1978, and with co-
1965:202-203). To support the point that this authors, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986). There I hope
formalization of the process, so characteristic of the reader will agree with my claims that I do
all of Igor's work, is hardly incidental, I need not commit the planning school "to the garbage
only quote Ken Andrews about his own writing heap of history" (only to the role of programing
on the design approach: "This book.. virtually strategies already conceived, as, incidentally,
ignores the mechanisms of planning on the does Andrews), that I do not bestow exclusive
grounds that, detached from strategy, they miss rights on either emergent strategy or the learning
their mark" (in Christensen, et al., 1987:11). school, and that I do not deny the role of
Thus, I doubt that the Harvard and other fans cognition in the learning process or argue that
strategies should never be made explicit. To
critique is not to dismiss, but sometimes only to
Key words: Design School, strategy formation. try to push back into appropriate context.

0143-2095/91/070463-04$05.00 Received6 May 1991

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464 Research Notes and Communications

What I do wish to address here is Igor's banner groundless escalation of vocabulary in our field
of science, which I see as the kettle trying to call ("hyperturbulence" having followed, McCann
the pot ever so awfully black. "Science" has and Selsky, 1984). When I look out my window,
always been the great smokescreen of the I see no turbulence. Nor when I visit all those
rationalists, worked to a fine art by many companies who don't realize (alongside myself)
economists who have used all kinds of fancy that my expertise is supposed to be confined to
methodologies to prove the details of their the not-for-profit sector. These particular days I
arguments while obscuring the fundamental prem- do see something akin to turbulence on my
ises on which they are based. television screen, but that is in Northern Iraq,
I am a great fan of Igor Ansoff's work. I say not corporate America. Pressured by some
this sincerely, and believe that the comments in serious competition from abroad, due in my
my planning book will bear this out. But he is opinion, to the years so many American busi-
hardly a noted empiricist. In fact, I read his work nesses spent with their collective heads buried in
much as I used to read that of Marshall the sand of "rational" planning, everyone runs
McLuhan-for his identification of important around like "Chicken Little" crying "The environ-
problems and creation of fascinating notions in ment's turbulent! The environment's turbulent!"
the process of developing a questionable and Bear in mind when that term first entered the
often obscure line of argument. In fact, I believe management literature: the same year Igor
Igor's real contribution to the literature, perhaps published Corporate Strategy, in an article by
to his chagrin, is not prescriptive but descriptive, Emery and Trist in 1965. 1965! Some turbulence.
in the concepts he provided to us. What we face is not turbulence but overinflated
Claims of the scientific basis of his work and egos.
the unscientific basis of my article abound in More of those facts are claimed to come from
Igor's reply. I am first of all accused of that most a set of six dissertations carried out at Igor's
deadly sin of all, "the sample of one". Well, I university, presumably under his supervision. I
happen to like samples of one. Piaget didn't cannot comment on these. I have not read them
apologize for studying his own children, and I and await their assessment by peers in refereed
doubt that the first physicist to split a single atom journals. I do not mean to sound like a snot-
felt horror about his sample of one. Ken Andrews' nosed academic. But there are facts and there
text typifies a large body of literature I identify are facts, and peer review helps to sort these
with the design school (a fair bit of which is out. I should add that, depending on how one
referenced in my original article), not to mention judges the journals, none or almost none of the
the many Harvard MBAs and DBAs who carried references Igor cites in his article about these
his messages far and wide. various facts have been subjected to that scrutiny.
Perhaps the only words that appear more often I have particular trouble with Igor's claims
than "turbulent" and "turbulence" in Igor's reply about the benefits of a rational approach to
are "facts" and "factual evidence". In fact, not diversification. For one thing, I am gravely
a single fact is ever supplied in the reply, only suspicious of anything having been proved in this
various references to such facts. One set comes regard. Certainly every particular story I have
from Business Week, which informs us, in Igor's heard about the process-my own unsubstan-
words, that "since the 1940s the environment of tiated facts-informs me that it often starts out
many business firms has progressively become as a rational, deliberate process, which almost
more and more turbulent, unpredictable, and inevitably fails, but when it does occasionally
surpriseful." I hope he means the late 1940s, succeed, it ends up as an emergent one of painful
because I wonder what has proved more sur- learning. Just consider Michael Porter's (1987)
priseful to American business than the early "facts" on the incidence of failure in acquisition
1940s. Indeed, has any period during this century decisions. Maybe the rational models were too
even remotely approached the pressures of the successful-in their incidence of adoption rather
two world wars and the depression? than the consequences of that adoption.
What in the world does "turbulence" mean 1 would like to introduce just one fact here.
anyway? And who has ever made a serious claim In one sense, it is the only real fact I know in
of measuring it? This is just a reflection of the all of the literature of strategic management.

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 Research Notes and Communications 465

While debates abound about rationality vs. are no formal techniques (analysis), and second,
incrementalism, or planning vs. learning, and that to program these strategies throughout
great gobs of wonderfully scientific statistics have complex organizations, and out to assenting
been collected on the subject (not the best of environments, we often require a good deal of
which is that whole "does planning pay?" formal analysis. So the two processes can
literature, which never proved anything), we do intertwine. I'll use your words: "cognition-trial-
have one rather tangible data point. It is Richard cognition-trial, etc." We may differ on where to
Pascale's (1984) account by several Honda begin, but once it has gone on for awhile, who
executives about how they developed on site the cares? (Does it matter if the chicken or the egg
strategy that captured two-thirds of the American came first?) You call it "strategic learning." I
motorcycle market. What is especially fascinating have no problem with that so long as you don't
about this messy account is that it stands in sharp pretend it can be formalized. And in return I'll
contrast to the brilliantly rational strategy imputed promise never to claim that planning shouldn't
to these executives by BCG (1975) consultants be formalized. (Sounds like a good deal to me!)
who apparently never bothered to ask. Winston Churchill is reported to have defined
Honda's success, if we are to believe those planning as "deciding to put one foot in front of
who did it and not those who figured it, was the other." I like to say that strategy and structure
built precisely on what they initially believed to proceed like two feet walking: strategy always
be one of Igor's "probable 'non-starters"'- precedes structure, and always follows it too.
namely the small motorcycle. Their own priors And so it is with planning and learning. BCG's
were that a market without small motorcycles mistake was not in what it did describe so much
would not buy small motorcycles. Had they a as in what it left out; the critical period of
proper planning process in place, as Igor describes emergent learning that had to inform the deliber-
it in these pages, this non-starter would have ate planning process. In other words, strategy
been eliminated at the outset-plan "rationally" had to be conceived informally before it could
and be done with it. But Honda was badly be programed formally.
managed in this regard, and so a few Japanese Our problem, in practice and academia, has
managers, riding around on those little things in always been one of imbalance, the assumption
Los Angeles, were pleasantly surprised. They that planning (or learning) could do it all. As I
learned. (General Motors was apparently well see things, long ago we may have been weak on
managed in this regard, because a product rational analysis, but today we have an excess of
development manager there once told me that it. What you call "the age of enlightenment" has
they had a mini-van on the drawing boards long become blinding. Contrary to your criticism, I
before Chrysler ever did but that this "probable am well aware of the "widespread use of
'non-starter"' was scuttled in the planning explicit a priori strategy formulation" in our
process!) organizations-that is exactly the problem. And
We think we are so awfully smart. We can it goes well beyond diversification decisions. For
work it all out in advance, so cleverly, we example, I have come to suspect that Harvard's
"rational" human beings, products of the "age great success may be business's great failure. In
of enlightenment." We can predict the future, other words, the real danger of the design school
identify the non-starters, impose our minds on may be in providing a seductive model whose
all that matter. And why not. After all, aren't superficial "rationality" in the classroom can so
we the ones who live in turbulent times? That easily get promoted into the executive suite.
makes us important, doesn't it? You claim, Igor, that rationality saves time.
Come on Igor. Of course we need to think. Maybe that is all too true: in formulating
Of course we want to be rational. But it's a detached, easy strategies in case study discusions,
complicated world out there. We both know that later in executive meetings, which are not meant
we shall get nowhere without emergent learning to be implemented, and later cannot be, and in
alongside deliberate planning. If we have discov- giving all those "whiz kids" a head start down
ered anything at all these many years, it is, first, the "fast track." They can certainly tell a
that the conception of a novel strategy is a "probable 'non-starter"' from a "winner," at least
creative process (of synthesis), for which there a priori.

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466 Research Notes and Communications

And let's not let ourselves be seduced by the the emergence of Type 5 environments", Academy
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Mintzberg, H. "Patterns in strategy formation",
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but the poverty of the performance of all of us thought". In J. Frederickson (ed.), Perspectives on
at the game of research. In any event, Igor, I Strategic Management, Harper Business, New York,
look forward to doing this again in the next 1990, pp. 105-235.
Mintzberg, H. and A. McHugh. "Strategy formation
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may really begin. June 1985, pp. 160-197.
Mintzberg, H. and J. Waters. "Tracking strategy in
an entrepreneurial firm", Academy of Management
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