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SCHOOLS OF
STRATEGIC THOUGHT

Prepared & Presented by:

Dr . Doha Saleh
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There are some people who begin the Zoo at

the beginning, called Way In, and walk as
quickly as they can past every cage until they
come to the one called Way Out, but the
nicest people go straight to the animal they
love most, and stay there.
I dedicate this lecture to those people who are
interested in open fields rather than closed
cages.
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The Planning Schools

The Design School Strategy formation as a
process of conception
The Planning School Strategy formation as
formal process
The Positioning School Strategy formation as an
analytical process
The Entrepreneurial School Strategy formation as
visionary process
The Cognitive School Strategy formation as
mental process
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The Planning Schools

The Learning School Strategy formation as an
emergent process
The Power School Strategy formation as a
process of negotiation
The Cultural School Strategy formation as a
collective process
The Environmental School Strategy formation as a
reactive process
The Configuration School Strategy formation as a
process of transformation
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The Design School

Strategy Formation As A
Process of Conception
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The Design School

The Design School places primary emphasis on the

appraisals of the external and internal situation the
former uncovering threats and opportunities in the
environment the latter revealing strengths and
weaknesses of the organization. It is a fit between
internal capabilities and external possibilities.
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The Basic Design School Model

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Premises of the Design School

1-Strategy formation should be a deliberate process of
conscious thought.
2-Responsibility for that control and consciousness
must rest with the chief executive officer: that person is
the strategist .
3-The model of strategy formation must be kept simple
and informal.
4- Strategies should be one of a kind: the best ones
result from a process of individualized design.
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5- The design process is complete when strategies

appear fully formulated as perspective.
6-These strategies should be explicit, so they have to be
kept simple.
7-Finally, only after these unique, full-blown , explicit,
and simple strategies are fully formulated can they then
be implemented.
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Critique of the Design School

Assessment of strengths and weaknesses : bypassing •
learning.

Structure follows strategy… As the left foot follows •

the right.

Making strategy explicit: promoting inflexibility. •

Separation of formulation from implementation: •

detaching thinking from acting.
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The Design School: Contexts and

Contributions
1- One brain can, in principle, handle all of the
information relevant for strategy formation.

2-That brain is able to have full , detailed , intimate

knowledge of the situation in question.
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3- The relevant knowledge must be established before a

new intended strategy has to be implemented – in other
words, the situation has to remain relatively stable or at
least predictable.

4-The organization in question must be prepared to cope

with a centrally articulated strategy.
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The Planning School

Strategy Formation As A
Formal Process
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The Basic Strategic Planning Model

1- The objectives-setting stage.

2- The external audit stage.
3-The internal audit stage.
4- The strategy evaluation stage.
5- The strategy operationalization stage.
6- Scheduling the whole process.
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Premises of the Planning School

1- Strategies result from a controlled, conscious process
of formal planning, decomposed into distinct steps, each
delineated by checklists and supported by techniques.
2- Responsibility for that overall process rests with the
chief executive in principle; responsibility for its
execution rests with staff planners in practice.
3- Strategies appear from this process full blown, to be
made explicit so that they can then be implemented
through detailed attention to objectives, budgets ,
programs , and operating plans of various kinds.
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The Positioning School

Strategy Formation As An
Analytical Process
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The positioning school focuses on the content of •

strategies, It opened up the prescriptive side of the
field to substantial investigation.

Scholars and consultants now had something to sink •

their teeth into: they could study and prescribe the
specific strategies available to organizations and the
contexts in which each seemed to work best.
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Premises of the Positioning School

1- Strategies are generic, specifically common,

identifiable positions in the marketplace.
2- That marketplace ( the context) is economic and
competitive.
3- The strategy formation process is therefore one of
selection of these generic positions based on analytical
calculation.
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4- Analysts play a major role in this process, feeding the

results of their calculations to managers who officially
control the choices.

5-Strategies thus come out from this process full blown

and are then articulated and implemented ; in effect ,
market structure drives deliberate positional strategies
that drive organizational structure.
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Critique of the Positioning School

1- Concerns about Focus : The focus has been narrow .
It is oriented to the economic and especially the
quantifiable as opposed to the social and the political ,
or even the nonquantifiable economic.
2- Concerns about Context : A second concern is the
narrow context of the positioning school.
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3- Concerns about Process : The Third concern relates

to process. The message of the positioning school is not
to get out there and learn, but to stay home and
calculate.
4- Concerns about Strategies : Finally, strategy itself
tends to have a narrow focus in the positioning school.
It is seen as generic position, not unique perspective. At
the limit, the process can be reduced to a formula,
whereby such a position is selected from a restricted list
of conditions.
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Contribution of the Positioning School

With its emphasis on analysis and calculation, the
positioning school has reduced its role from the
formulation of strategy to the conducting of strategic
analyses in support of that process.
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The Entrepreneurial School

Strategy Formation As A
Visionary Process
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Premises of the Entrepreneurial School

1- Strategy exists in the mind of the leader as
perspective, specifically a sense of long-term direction,
a vision of the organizations future.

2-The process of strategy formation is semiconscious at

best , rooted in the experience and intuition of the
leader, whether he or she actually conceives the strategy
or adopts it from others and then internalizes it in his or
her own behavior.
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3-The leader promotes the vision single- mindedly ,

even obsessionally, maintaining close personal control
of the implementation in order to be able to reformulate
specific aspects as necessary.

4-The strategic vision is thus malleable, and so

entrepreneurial strategy tends to be deliberate and
emergent-deliberate in overall vision and emergent in
how the details of the vision unfold.
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5-The organization is likewise malleable, a simple

structure responsive to the leaders directives, whether
an actual startup, a company owned by a individual, or a
turnaround in a large established organization many of
whose procedures and power relationships are
suspended to allow the visionary leader considerable
latitude for maneuver.
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The Cognitive School

Strategy Formation As A
Mental Process
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A Parallel Process Model of Strategic Decision Making

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Premises of the Cognitive School

1- Strategy formation is a cognitive process that takes

place in the mind of the strategist.

2- Strategies thus emerge as perspectives – in the form

of concepts, maps , schemas, and frames- that shape
how people deal with inputs from the environment.
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3- These inputs ( according to the “ objective” wing of

this school) flow through all sorts of distorting filters
before they are decoded by the cognitive maps, or else
( according to the “subjective” wing) are merely
interpretations of a world that exists only in terms of
how it is perceived. The seen world , in other words, can
be modeled, it can be framed, and it can be constructed.
4- As concepts, strategies are difficult to attain in the
first place, considerably less than optimal when actually
attained , and subsequently difficult to change when no
longer viable.
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The Learning School

Strategy Formation As An
Emergent Process
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Premises of the Learning School

1-The complex and unpredictable nature of the
organizations environment, often coupled with the
diffusion of knowledge bases necessary for strategy,
precludes deliberate control; strategy making must
above all take the form of a process of learning over
time, in which , at the limit , formulation and
implementation become indistinguishable.
2- While the leader must learn too, and sometimes can
be the main learner, more commonly it is the collective
system that learns : there are many potential strategists
in most organizations.
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3-This learning proceeds in emergent fashion, through

behavior that stimulates thinking retrospectively, so that
sense can be made of action.
4-The role of leadership thus becomes not to
preconceive deliberate strategies , but to manage the
process of strategic learning , whereby novel strategies
can emerge.
5- Accordingly, strategies appear first as patterns out of
the past, only later , perhaps, as plans for the future, and
ultimately , as perspectives to guide overall behavior.
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Learning Organizations
Organizations can learn as much, if not more, from failure •
as from success.
A learning organization rejects the adage”if it ain’t broken, •
don’t fix it”
Learning organizations assume that the managers and •
workers closest to service provision often know more
about this than their superiors.
A learning organization actively seeks to move knowledge •
from one part of the organization to another.
Learning organizations spend a lot of energy looking •
outside their own boundaries of knowledge.
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The Power School

Strategy Formation As A
Process of Negotiation
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Premises of the Power School

1- Strategy formation is shaped by power and politics,

whether as a process inside the organization or as the
behavior of the organization itself in its external
environment.

2- The strategies that may result from such a process

tend to be emergent, and take the form of positions and
plays more than perspectives.
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3- Micro power sees strategy making as the interplay,

through persuasion, bargaining, and sometimes direct
confrontation , in the form of political games, among
parochial interests and shifting coalitions, with none
dominant for any significant period of time.

4- Macro power sees the organization as promoting its

own welfare by controlling or cooperating with
organizations, through the use of strategic maneuvering
as well as collective strategies in various kinds of
networks and alliances.
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The Cultural School

Strategy Formation As A
Collective Process
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Premises of the Cultural School

1- Strategy formation is a process of social interaction ,
based on the beliefs and understandings shared by the
members of an organization.

2- An individual acquires these beliefs through a

process of acculturation, or socialization , which is
largely tacit and nonverbal, although sometimes
reinforced by more formal indoctrination.
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3-The members of an organization can, therefore, only

partially describe the beliefs that underpin their culture,
.while the origins and explanations may remain obscure

4-As a result, strategy takes the form of perspective

above all, more than positions, rooted in collective
intentions ( not necessarily explicated). Strategy is
therefore best described as deliberate ( even if not fully
.conscious)
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5- Culture and especially ideology do not encourage

strategic change so much as the perpetuation of existing
strategy ; at best , they tend to promote shifts in position
within the organizations overall strategic perspective
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Culture and Strategy

1- DECISION-MAKING STYLE. Culture influences ,
and what is favored in an organization affect its use of
analysis, and thereby influences the strategy-formation
process.

2- RESISTANCE TO STRATEGIC CHANGE. A

shared commitment to beliefs encourages consistency in
an organization’s behavior, and thereby discourages
changes in strategy.
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OVERCOMING THE RESISTANCE TO •

STRATEGIC CHANGE. Attention has also been
directed at how to overcome the strategic inertia of
organizational culture.

DOMINANT VALUES. Successful (or excellent”) •

organization's are said to be “dominated” by key
values, such as service, quality, and innovation, which,
in turn, provide competitive advantage.
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The Environmental School

Strategy Formation As A
Reactive Process
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Premises of the Environmental School

1- The environment, presenting itself to the organization

as a set of general forces, is the central actor in the
strategy making process.

2-The organization must respond to these forces, or else

be “ selected out.”
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3- Leadership thus becomes a passive element for

purposes of reading the environment and ensuring
proper adaptation by the organization.

4- Organizations end up clustering together in distinct

ecological type niches, positions where they remain
until resources become scarce or conditions too hostile.
Then they die.
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The Configuration School

Strategy Formation As A
Process of Transformation
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Premises of the Configuration School

1-Most of the time, an organization can be described in
terms of some kind of stable configuration of its
characteristics: for a distinguishable period of time, it
adopts a particular form of structure matched in
particular behaviors that give rise to a particular set of
strategies.

2- These periods of stability are interrupted occasionally

by some process of transformation – a quantum leap to
another configuration.
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3- These successive states of configuration and periods

of transformation may order themselves over time into
patterned sequences, for example describing life cycles
of organizations.

4- The key to strategic management , therefore , is to

sustain stability or at least adaptable strategic change
most of the time, but periodically to recognize the need
for transformation and be able to manage that disruptive
process without destroying the organization.
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5-Accordingly, the process of strategy making can be

one of conceptual designing or formal planning,
systematic analyzing or leadership visioning,
cooperative learning , focusing on individual cognition ,
collective socialization, or simple response to the forces
of the environment; but each must be found at its own
time and in its own context. In other words, the schools
of thought on strategy formation themselves represent
particular configurations.

6-The resulting strategies take the form of plans or

patterns , positions or perspectives , but again , each for
its own time and matched to its own situation.
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Bottom- Up Chance
“Six Steps to Effective Change” for managers at the
business unit or plant level
(from Beer, Eisentat , and Spector,1990:161-164)
1-Mobilize commitment to change through joint diagnosis of
business problems… By helping people develop a shared
diagnosis of what is wrong in an organization and what can and
must be improved , a general manager [of a unit] mobilizes the
initial commitment that is necessary to begin the change process..

2-Develop a shared vision of how to organize and manage for

competitiveness. Once a core group of people is committed to a
particular analysis of the problem , the general manager can lead
employees toward a task-aligned vision of the organization that
defines new roles and responsibilities.
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3-Foster consensus for the new vision, competence to enact

it. And cohesion to move it along…

4-Spread revitalization to all departments without pushing it

from the top…The temptation to force newfound insights
on the rest of the organization can be great, particularly
when rapid change is needed, but it would be the same
mistake that senior managers make when they try to push
programmatic change throughout a company . It short-
circuits the change process. Its better to let each department
“ reinvent the wheel”- that is, to find its own way to the new
organization…
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5-Institutionalize revitalization through formal policies,

systems, and structures… The new approach has to
become entrenched..

6-Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problem

in the revitalization process. The purpose of change is to
create…a learning organization capable of adapting to a
changing competitive environment …Some might say
that this is the general managers responsibility . But
monitoring the change process needs to be shared…
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Top-Down Transformation
“Eight Steps to Transforming Your Corporation”
for its overall managers
(from Kotter, 1995:61)
1- Establishing a sense of urgency: examining market
and competitive realities ; identifying and discussing
crises, potential crises, or major opportunities.

2- Forming a powerful guiding coalition: assembling a

group with enough power to lead the change effort;
encouraging the group to work together as a team.
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3-Creating a vision: creating a vision to help direct the

change effort; developing strategies for achieving that
vision.

4- Communicating the vision: using every vehicle

possible to communicate the new vision and strategies;
teaching new behaviors by the example of the guiding
coalition.
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5- Empowering others to act on the vision : getting rid

of obstacles to change; changing systems or structures
that seriously undermine the vision; encouraging risk
taking and nontraditional ideas, activities , and actions.

6-Planning for and creating short-term wins: planning

for visible performance improvements; creating those
improvements ; recognizing and rewarding employees
involved in the improvements.
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7- Consolidating improvements and producing still

more changes : using increased credibility to change
systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision;
hiring, promoting , and developing employees who can
implement the vision ; reinvigorating the process with
new projects, themes, and change agents.

8-Institutionalizing new approaches: articulating the

connections between the new behaviors and corporation
success; developing the means to ensure leadership
development and succession .
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