BibSonomy publications for /user/callagialla/FallThu Mar 20 21:24:32 CET 2008Harvard Business Review1107-114The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning721994The effectivenessSTRATEGIC intelligenceBUSINESS modelsRISE Fall of (Book) strategy strategiesBUSINESS officersBUSINESS Planning, planningCOMPETITIVE & ANTITAKEOVER advantageCHIEF Strategic planningMANAGEMENTORGANIZATIONAL Strategic planning has fallen from the pedestal it occupied when it came on the scene in the mid-1960s. Henry Mintzberg argues that few managers understand why the highly touted "one best way" to create strategy failed. Fewer still have any idea what they should do with their planning staff. Strategic planning failed because it is not the same as strategic thinking. Planning is about analysis—about breaking a goal into steps, formalizing those steps, and articulating the expected consequences. Strategic thinking, in contrast, is about synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcomes of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective, a not too precisely articulated vision of direction that must be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization. Strategic planning has not only never amounted to strategic thinking but has often prevented it. Planning rests on three fallacies: that prediction is possible, that strategists can be detached from their strategies, and, above all, that strategy making can be formalized. The failure of strategic planning is, in fact, the failure of systems to do better than or as well as people. All this time, strategic planning has really been strategic programming, the articulation and elaboration of strategies, or visions, that already exist. Organizations disenchanted with strategic planning should transform the planning job. Planners should make their contribution around the strategy-making process rather than inside it. They should supply the formal analyses that strategic thinking requires. They should support strategy making by helping managers think strategically. And they can be strategy programmers, helping to specify the steps needed to carry out the vision. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Harvard Business Review is the property of Harvard Business School Publication Corp. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts) Strategic planning has fallen from the pedestal it occupied when it came on the scene in the mid-1960s. Henry Mintzberg argues that few managers understand why the highly touted "one best way" to create strategy failed. Fewer still have any idea what they should do with their planning staff. Strategic planning failed because it is not the same as strategic thinking. Planning is about analysis—about breaking a goal into steps, formalizing those steps, and articulating the expected consequences. Strategic thinking, in contrast, is about synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcomes of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective, a not too precisely articulated vision of direction that must be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization. Strategic planning has not only never amounted to strategic thinking but has often prevented it. Planning rests on three fallacies: that prediction is possible, that strategists can be detached from their strategies, and, above all, that strategy making can be formalized. The failure of strategic planning is, in fact, the failure of systems to do better than or as well as people. All this time, strategic planning has really been strategic programming, the articulation and elaboration of strategies, or visions, that already exist. Organizations disenchanted with strategic planning should transform the planning job. Planners should make their contribution around the strategy-making process rather than inside it. They should supply the formal analyses that strategic thinking requires. They should support strategy making by helping managers think strategically. And they can be strategy programmers, helping to specify the steps needed to carry out the vision. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Harvard Business Review is the property of Harvard Business School Publication Corp. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts)