Henry Mintzberg

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The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning

In this definitive and revealing history, Henry Mintzberg unmasks the process that has mesmerized so many organisations since 1965: strategic planning. One of the original management thinkers, Mintzberg concludes that strategy cannot be planned because planning is about analysis and strategy is about synthesis. That is why, he asserts, the process has failed so often and dramatically. Mintzberg traces the origin and history of strategic planning through its prominence and subsequent fall. He argues that we must reconcieve the process by which strategies are created by emphasizing informal learning and personal vision. Mintzberg proposes new definitions of planning and strategy, and examines in unusual ways the various models of strategic planning and the evidence of why they failed. Reviewing the so-called ‘pitfalls’ of planning, he shows how the process itself can destroy commitment, narrow a company’s vision, discourage change and breed an atmosphere of politics. In a harsh critique of many sacred cows, he describes three basic fallacies of the process – in that discontinuities can be predicted, that strategists can be detached from the operations of the organisation, and that the process of strategy-making itself can be formalized. Mintzberg devotes a substantial section to the new role of planning, plans and planners, not inside the strategy-making process, but around it, in support of it, providing some of its inputs and sometimes programming its outputs, as well as encouraging strategic thinking in general. This book is essential reading for anyone in an organization who is influenced by the planning or strategy-making process. It is also suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students undertaking corporate strategy, strategic management and business policy courses.

Strategy Bites Back: It is a Lot More, and Less, Than You Ever Imagined

SWOTed by strategy models? Crunched by analysis? Strategy doesn’t have to be this way. Strategy is really all about being different. Thinking about it shouldn’t make you reach for the snooze button, but in the world of strategy everybody has become so serious. If that gets us better strategies, fine. But it doesn’t; we get worse ones—predictable, generic, uninspiring, dull. Strategy doesn’t only have to position; it also has to inspire. So an uninspiring strategy is really no strategy at all. The most interesting and most successful companies are not boring. They have novel, creative, inspiring, sometimes even playful strategies. By taking the whole strategy business less seriously, they end up with more serious results—and have some fun in the bargain. Strategy Bites Back invites you to encounter a diverse and unlikely set of voices with something sharp to say about strategy — from Michael Porter and Peter Drucker to Coco Channel’s “little black dress”. Taken together these perspectives will provide you with new and dramatically different angles from which to attack the world of strategy.

Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management

Strategy is the most prestigious but also the most confusing part of business. Managers are constantly bombarded with new jargon and the latest fads promising the magic bullet for every strategic problem. The world of strategy can seem to be an impenetrable jungle. Strategy Safari presents a powerful antidote to the dilemma of needing to know about strategy and yet not being able to find any comprehensible guidelines. This revised edition is a comprehensive, colourful and illuminating tour through the wilds of strategic management. In this provocative, jargon-free and extremely readable guide, top strategy authors Mintzberg, Ahlstrand & Lampel clearly set out and critique each of the ten major schools of strategic management thinking to help you grasp what you really need to know.