Strategy and Practice 7 - Thinking and Acting Strategically

Strategic thinking can be implicit and explicit

• • Takes a systems or holistic vew
  • Focuses on intent
  • thinking in real time
  • Hypothesis driven
  • can be opportunistic - opportunity and environment. Presley was a pioneer. Beetles were an explicit strategy

e.g. Sony as strategy focused on Disruptive Technologies Now sustaining innovation

Strategic thinking new ways of thinking in a complex world, breaking out of normal routine, finds connections unperceived by others - sliced bread -

Anyone can think strategically but many are needed to implement it

Strategic programming is the method thru which thinking is turned into action - //codification, elaboration and conversion//

• Coyne and Subramanian - a few strategic decision shape the org
• Do managers have full Agency ie Privatization
• D-m is not linear sequence of thinking then acting - also based on experience, gut feel
• Strategic Advantage was about positioning - but there any many choices

Plan - intended course of action Play to outwit the competition Pattern - a stream of action and decisions not just one Position - environment and org Perspective how the decision are made

!!History of D-M

• 1950's - Planning Approach - strategic programming - scenario building - sensitivity analysis- Game Theory
• 1980's The content of strategic decision - Hickson
• 1990's Realtionship between performance and D-M

Hickson - Sporadic, (discontinuous) fluid (continuous) and Constricted (restricted to a few)

Strategic Options - Tells us little about actions or type of actions .......Knowledge of new mkts..............................................................................Capabilities LL.....No options LH......Trading options...Trade the info HL......Capable but to awareness HH.....Full

!!The Process of D-M Planning v Chaotic - dont try to simplify but deal with complexity - think creatively - reduce uncertainty

Problem solving / chaos ...........Uncoupled means unrelated to ends Problem solving / Planning Intended Chaos / political....random -dm Planning / Political Incremental

Complex / political decisions are characterized by...De Witt Tame v Wicked

• difficult to define
• Understandingly the problem is the part of the solution
• Rarely one solution
• Difficult to assess p[performance
• levels of uncertainty
• difficult to reverse
• Discontinuous
• highly interconnectedness

The organizational context

• • systems - complex. automated -= can open reduce decision
  • structure..structure v strategy you need two legs both influence each other
  • ownership and control
  • org culture Yamaha's Kill Honda. Orgs can be trapped by their culture

!!Strategic d-m and performance

• • failure to address real problem
  • decision made the problem worse
  • deciosn becomes reversible if things goes wrong
  • leap in the dark
  • counter cultural
  • context changes

!!Duration and decisions

• • Decisions take 4 to 24mths to implement
  • Knowledge base of managers
  • receptivity of the org culture

Also Architecture of D-M and Process of D-M and Perspectives on Decision-making Architecture of D-M Performance and D-M