Strategy as Ethos

Organisations will have a clearer understanding of the strategic choices they should make if they have a good understanding of the organisation’s ethos (defined as ‘the characteristic spirit, prevalent tone of sentiment, ‘genius’ or distinctive spirit of a people or institution’). The concept is somewhat critical of Stakeholder Analysis’ instruction to firms to outline their responsibilities to a vast array of constituents, claiming that this stretches organisations too thin and hamstrings decision-making. Strategy as Ethos applies Aristotle’s view that the man who tries to be friends with all will not be seen as a friend by any, implying that organisations like people must make difficult choices about which relationships they really care about and prioritise.

People can develop a clearer understanding of their company’s ethos by thinking of it as if it were a living being, by asking questions like:

• If our organisation was a person, what sort of person would it be?
• What sort of characters would our competitors be?
• How are we different from those characters?
• What sort of actions would this different character or ethos encourage us to take in order to be consistent with ourselves?

The framework most easily applied to analyse corporate ethos is the Circle of Corporate Ethos. In keeping with Mintzberg’s emergence perspective or the cultural school of strategy process this framework suggests that if an organisation has a clear understanding of its purpose, its particular values, and how employees should enact these values, then the contents of its strategy should be easy to determine. As a simple rule, those companies whose purpose, values, actions and strategies fit well with one another and reinforce one another are highly animated and orientated . Those whose purpose, values, actions and strategies do not fit and reinforce, tend to lack in orientation and/or animation.

See also Johnson & Scholes' Cultural Web