Crafting strategy

Henry Mintzberg (1987)

A Critical Review

Contents

Page

Introduction 4

Position in the wider debate on processes of strategy 4

Strength and Weakness 5

Conclusion 6

References 7

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1. Introduction
Till today, the debate on processes of strategy is continuous (Moore, 2011).
Mintzbergs scientific approaches provide important contributions to this discussion. As
Turner (1990) describes Crafting strategy as the synthesis of Mintzbergs research
outcomes after sixteen years, a critical review provides valuable insights into his
concepts.

2. The debate
In the wider literature of strategy two opposing approaches towards how strategies
come about can be distinguished. The prescriptive approach by Porter and Ansoff states
that strategies have clear, explicit planning dimensions. Deliberate strategy making
means having defined goals and working towards these goals with specific plans (Lynch,
2009). By contrast, strategies can also evolve through a pragmatic process of bodging,
learning and compromise (Whittington, 2001). Emergent strategies are not planned but
develop through the circumstances the organisation comes across (Hamel, 2000),
therefore considering that the environment is unpredictable (Grant, 2003) and that an
organisation must be flexible.
'Crafting Strategy challenges prescriptive strategy processes in several ways. Mintzberg
(1987) stresses that strategic planning misleads organisations by the distortion of
strategy formulation and implementation, while the crafting image of strategy formation
creates a flow between these processes. This merge of processes is taken up by Lynch
(2000), who defines emergent strategies as undertaken by an organisation that
analyzes its environment constantly and implements its strategy simultaneously
(Lynch, 2000, p. 24).
However Alfred Chandler (1962) believes in the supremacy of top-down-processes for
strategy formation. The key to success hereby lies in the allocation of responsibility for
strategy formulation and control to the top manager whereas operational managers
carry out strategy implementation. Hence, top management has time and orientation for
appraisal.
Mintzberg (1987) judges this division of responsibility as a condoned detachment of
deliberate strategies. As planners are uncoupled from daily business life, planning relies

2
on hard data rather than on qualitative insights (Mintzberg, 1994), which leads to the
preclusion of learning. In his view, only emergent strategy formation supports learning
and the interaction of hand and mind, as it is an on-going process that allows changes,
whereas the conventional concept of making strategy explicit builds up resistance to
shifts (Mintzberg, 1987). To ensure enough experience to formulate a working strategy,
middle management should be included in decision-making processes and strategists
should be experts who get their hands dirty digging for ideas (Mintzberg, 1994, p.
111). By doing this, Mintzberg assesses the military metaphor of strategists as generals
who develop strategies that are executed by others (Whittington, 2001) as one of the
great fallacies of conventional strategic management (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 69).
Back in 1984, Ansoff adapted the prescriptive views to scientific progress, thus changing
the classic perspective from CEO-centralized decision-making to strategic bi-
centralization. He criticises Mintzberg for disregarding these prescriptive adjustments
(Ansoff, 1991).
However, although Mintzberg rejects the concept of strategies as plans devised by a
strategist before implementation (Turner, 1990), he acknowledges that the total
absence of intentions is as illusory as a perfect predicable environment (Mintzberg and
Waters, 1985) and that organisational strategies exhibit both emergent and deliberate
features (Mintzberg, 1987).

3. Main Strength and Weakness

Mintzberg (1987) stresses that deliberate and emergent strategies represent the
extreme points of a range of strategies used in business life. Hereby he acknowledges
that the approaches are intertwined and strategy processes are not black or white
(Mintzberg, 1987). This view is contemporary as todays business world is
unpredictable and increasingly connected (Liebhard and Lorenzo, 2010) and thus
demands a combination of planned and emergent features from organisations (Burnes,
2004, 2005). Hence, this flexible perspective is the greatest strength of the article.
The range of examples of NFB, Honda, 3M and Hewlett-Packard, where deliberate and
emergent strategies merged to customized ones, provide practical evidence for this
intertwining. Even more evidence results from a study of Titus et al (2011), which states
that manufacturing firms achieve the highest growth rate when their strategy exhibits
both emergent and planned qualities. Mintzberg seems aware of this fact, suggesting

5
companies to have a broad perspective on strategy formation and knowing that there
exists no best way to craft strategy (Mintzberg, 1987). Therefore, he questions his own
strategic beliefs, resulting in a less biased perspective.
Kipping and Caillutet (2010) judge this flexibility as freedom for companies to craft their
fitting strategy. But despite his more balanced viewpoint, Mintzberg does not address
the potential negative consequences of purely emergent strategy processes, which is the
greatest flaw of Crafting Strategy. In his view errors become opportunities, and
limitations stimulate creativity (Mintzberg, 1987, p.70), which he values as a chance for
organisations to learn from these experiences and implement strategy changes until
effectiveness is reached.
Hereby he neglects that failure of strategy and reorientation is money and time
consuming. A company might get beaten by a competitor and suffer from substantial
losses of money when acting without sufficient planning. This happened to FedEx:
During the mid- 1980s, the company moved away from their core business of package
delivery to a mail-service with fax-machines. The service boasted too many technical
problems and resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars (Foust, 1989).
Adcroft (2013), recognizing this ambivalence, judges emergent strategies as a trial and
error driven activity where intuition is wrong as often as it is right, which gives rise to
levels of risk (Adcroft, 2013, Chapter 12, p.8). Carr et. al (2004), too, criticize
Mintzbergs strategic perspective, identifying the absence of intentions as the reason of
failure of strategic management processes. These evaluations raise the question
whether the neglected risks of emergent strategies lead to practical unsuitability of
Mintzbergs approaches.

4. Conclusion
Crafting Strategy loosens the separation between emergent and prescriptive strategy
processes and illustrates the importance of building-in learning and customization in a
companys strategy. Unfortunately, Mintzberg misses to evaluate the risks of emergent
strategies. Yet, Crafting Strategy contains his contributions to the strategic field, namely
the injection of practical thought and a dose of reality into the strategists mindset.
Moreover, organisational learning is still seen as a relevant lever to achieve strategy
process effectiveness (Hutzschenreuter and Kleindienst, 2006).

6
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Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Ansoff,H.I. (1991) Critique on Henry Mintzbergs the design school: Reconsidering

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Burnes, B. (2004) Managing Change: A Strategic Approach to Organizational Dynamics.

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Burnes, B. (2005) Complexity theories and organizational change International journal

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