Learn from Minzberg's top ten strategic schools.

There are different opinions about what strategy is, and there is no universal definition.

Simply put, strategy is not about what success is, but about "how" to succeed.

Mintzberg believes that strategy has multiple definitions: "strategy is planning, strategy is strategy, strategy is mode, strategy is positioning, and strategy is perspective".

Liu Run thinks: strategy is medicine, medicine is three-point poison.

Learning strategies must distinguish between the logic of "medicine" and the logic of "medicine" It is impossible for a person to practice medicine according to Compendium of Materia Medica, and the logic of medicine is to "suit the right medicine".

The same symptoms don't mean the same symptoms. Don't use drugs blindly. It's a three-point poison.

"High-performance enterprises have demonstrated their ability to integrate various competitive standards in strategic decision-making. They also have these characteristics: planning and gradualism, command and participation, control and authorization, foresight and detail. "

Mintzberg's "strategy course" is actually a drug guide. What are these drugs? He divided strategy into ten schools, namely, design school, planning school, orientation school, entrepreneur school, cognition school, learning school, motivation school, culture school, environment school and structure school.

Conception, deep thinking and familiarity of nurturing consciousness. Obtain a basic match between internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities. After careful consideration, senior executives have formulated clear, simple, understandable and unique strategies so that everyone can implement them.

The formulation of strategy is a controlled ideological process, that is, it is not a procedural analysis process, nor is it developed by intuition.

Hou Yi, founder of Boxma Xiansheng: Every great business comes from top-level design, which is a typical design school thinking.

The most commonly used model of design school is SWOT, followed by PEST. What are the plans in five years?

Some state-owned enterprises are keen to make five-year plans. "The only purpose of our planning is to end the planning."

One of the most frequently asked questions by design consultants is: Can you summarize your company's strategy in less than 35 words? This is also a typical design thinking.

Summarize the characteristics of the School of Design:

1, the company has only one strategist, that is, CEO.

Once the strategy is made, the next step is to implement it.

3. The design school opposes the "gradual" view and the "emergent" strategy.

The planning school has an important assumption: the process of strategy formulation should not only be well thought out, but also be standardized and can be decomposed into clear steps. Each step can be described in the form of a list, with various technologies, especially objectives, budgets, processes and operating plans, as auxiliary means.

This means that the chief planner has replaced the position of senior executives and become the main role in the process of strategic formulation.

Every well-known strategic consulting company has its own "strategic planning" model.

Different strategic planning models have a common feature: complexity.

Large group companies have set up "Group Strategy Department &; General Staff Department &; Institute ",in fact, these strategic departments can't formulate strategies, they just undertake a link of strategy formulation.

The process of strategy includes at least three parts: information collection and analysis, suggestion, implementation and supervision. In fact, these people can't and shouldn't mention it. This should be the responsibility of the CEO.

A good planning process should be a combination of left hand and right hand.

Summarize the characteristics of the planning school:

1, the strategy should be formulated by well-educated planners and approved by CEO;

2. What really produces strategy is a controllable and conscious formal planning process;

3. The strategy is subdivided into objectives, budgets, procedures and various business plans.

This school believes that after a formal analysis and careful screening of the industry situation, the strategy can be simplified to a general positioning. So the planner became an analyst. The theories put forward by the visiting school cover a wide range, including strategic groups, value chain analysis, game theory and so on, but they all have a common feature, that is, they pay attention to analysis.

According to the logic of medicine, there should be thousands of people in the orientation group, because everyone has different symptoms, but the orientation group divided the prescription into three drawers. The doctor's main task is to analyze which drawer prescription your symptoms are more suitable for.

Directional schools have a long history and reached their climax respectively:

One is the military motto. For example, in Sun Tzu's Art of War, "Ten measures, five attacks, double points; The enemy can fight it, a few people can escape it, if not, they can avoid it.

The second is to find consulting needs. Boston matrix

The third is the development of empirical proposition: Porter's competitive analysis model.

Summarize the characteristics of directional schools:

1, the CEO is the main strategist, and the designer is the analyst and planner.

2. Limited choice, simple but possibly one-sided;

3. Focusing on competition will limit the vision and creativity of strategy.

Design school, planning school and orientation school emphasize deliberation and analysis, but they all have a common problem, that is, they can't cope with change.

The entrepreneurial view is that the situation is changing so fast, how can you make a feasible plan? You may not know where to go, how can you design a specific path?

Knowing where to go is important, but the specific path is not so important.

Therefore, not every enterprise needs vision, mission and values, but only one of the top ten schools.

Alibaba: Let there be no difficult business in the world;

Microsoft: Let everyone have a computer on their desktop;

Xiaomi: Let everyone enjoy the fun of technology.

Like the design school, it emphasizes the importance of leadership in the process of strategic formulation; However, unlike the design school, the entrepreneur school regards the formation of strategy as a process dominated by the intuition of leaders, which is completely opposite to the planning school. So the strategy has changed from precise design, planning and positioning to vague will or broad vision, which can only be presented through metaphor in a sense.

However, if enterprise leaders vigorously promote the implementation process of their established vision, the essential difference between entrepreneur school and the first three normative schools will begin to fade.

Because the entrepreneurial school emphasizes the role of entrepreneurs and has higher requirements for entrepreneurs,

Such entrepreneurs are generally "slightly crazy" people to lead people to realize their vision.

What is mild dryness? That's the medical definition.

1, attractive, persuasive and capable of "distorting the real world".

2, full of energy, less sleep;

3. focus your energy on your ambition.

4, and believe that this can change the world.

The first four schools all have the same problem. Strategy can be well thought out, planned and analyzed, and enterprises can also establish a vision, but only if you know enough. If your cognition is not in place, how can you make a suitable strategic plan, so improve your cognition first.

People's cognition is biased. Kahneman's prospect theory shows that it is easy to be biased when studying people's cognition, and it is ok if one's cognition is always biased or fallacious. For example, "addicted to small probability events" and so on.

Strategy is constructed subjectively. Another new branch of this school adopts a more subjective explanation or constructivist view to look at the strategic process: human cognitive process, that is, creatively explaining the process and constructing strategies. Cognition is not only a process of objectively reflecting reality, but also a process of subjective interpretation, which constructs a strategic process.

Cognitive psychology tells us that the world you see is the world you perceive.

Strategy is a satisfactory decision under incomplete information. Herbert Simon's "limited decision theory" won the Nobel Prize in Economics and Commerce.

Socrates' ear digging theory is a satisfactory decision-making case. According to the ear-digging theory, if the best childbearing age is 30, then the most suitable marriage age for girls is around 27.

To sum up the view of cognitive school:

1. Compared with the first four schools, the cognitive school is subjective;

2. The formation of strategy is a cognitive process that occurs in the strategist's thinking;

3. Strategy is to make decisions according to cognitive level under the condition of insufficient information.

Since the strategy is so complicated, what should the strategist do? Academics gave the answer: learning.

According to this school, when individuals or (more often) groups begin to study a certain situation and the ability of organizations to deal with it, strategies naturally arise. Eventually, the strategy will converge into an effective mode of action.

Change is no longer managed, but managed through change. -Lapile.

Although leaders must also learn, sometimes they are the main learners, but usually the whole team is learning: there are many potential strategists in most organizations.

Otherwise, this conversation will happen:

Leader: If only you idiots could understand my perfect strategy;

Executor: Since you are so smart, why should you plan a strategy that a fool like us can execute well?

Learners believe that any actor with learning ability and resources can create strategic prototypes. Some prototypes, with the support of managers, have been extended to the whole organization or top managers and developed. Such a successful strategic prototype will converge the "flow" of experience into the "sea" of mode and eventually form a new strategy.

The main duty of a leader is not to foresee the strategy, but to identify it.

One of the most famous experiments of supporting learning school is the "bee and fly" experiment. When important strategies are repositioned, they are rarely implemented through formal plans. In fact, they often do not even come from top managers. On the contrary, it comes from small actions and decisions made by different people (sometimes by accident and luck, rather than deliberately pursuing the effect). After long-term accumulation, these small changes will lead to major changes in strategic direction.

In other words, anyone with insight in the organization can drive the strategic process.

There are many such emergent phenomena in nature, such as fish schools and geese. Because of the popularity of their simple plans, they have achieved far more than the sum of scattered individuals.

To sum up, the characteristics of learning schools:

1, the key is not the budget strategy, but the identification strategy;

2. Constantly reflect, eliminate harmful seeds, and let good seeds emerge, multiply and spread.

It is better to be full of vitality in chaos than to die in an orderly way.

What you said seems reasonable, but have you considered your competitors? A supplier? Customer? They don't know what their needs are and they don't support them. No matter how well you think, it's no use.

Do you know anything about sex politics? Do they agree and support it? What should they do if they confront you? Is your strategy better?

Micro-power holds that the strategic development within an organization is political, and in this process, the roles with different powers consult, talk and confront each other.

Macro-power pays attention to the organization's use of power, and thinks that the organization, as an entity, will use its power to influence other parties and their partners in network relationships such as alliances and joint ventures, so as to discuss various "collective" strategies that are beneficial to its own interests.

To give a few examples: banks install ATM machines together; Joint venture: exchange market for technology; Strategic alliance; Strategic outsourcing led to Made in China.

Summarize the characteristics of the dynamic school:

1, the strategy is formed by the game of relevant participants;

2. Micro-power regards strategy as a political game;

3. Macro forces regard strategy as an all-round alliance.

Put power in front of the mirror, and culture is reflected in the mirror. Cultural school believes that strategy formulation is a process rooted in culture and influenced by social and cultural driving forces.

"Bad culture will treat strategy as a snack."

"No, this sentence is not all right. In fact, the strategy is breakfast, the technology is lunch, the product is dinner, and culture will eat everything behind. "

For example, why amoeba is not well executed, because it is rooted in the culture of "respecting heaven and loving people" in Japan; Why does OKR play well in America? Because of free and open (social) culture. Not checking is not the main reason, but culture is.

Summarize the characteristics of the cultural school:

1. Enterprises are essentially regarded as the mutual competition of resource bundles;

2. Culture is a tool for compiling these resources;

3. The unrepeatable and incomprehensible organizational culture is precisely the protector of organizational strategic advantages.

Natural selection, survival of the fittest, those who stay must adapt to this environment, and those who do not adapt have long been eliminated.

In the coming Agopa period, it must be a special theory that adapts to environmental changes that inspires Darwin to discover the theory of evolution. I don't know which one will definitely stay and which one will be eliminated. Leaders want to sow beans and become soldiers, so let them evolve separately.

Haier: one person, one small and micro enterprise;

Handu Yishe: Group System

Finnitz: Fission entrepreneurship.

Summarize the characteristics of environmental school:

1, the environment is usually regarded as an external "fuzzy" force;

2. Darwin: Variation-Selection-Retention

3. The strategic choice is limited by the environment.

Structural school is more academic and descriptive. It regards the organization as a kind of structure-a compact collection of various characteristics and actions, and at the same time it integrates the opinions of other schools, that is, each structure actually has its own position.

For example, mechanical organizations often use the planning strategy formulation method under relatively stable conditions, while more dynamic organizations such as start-ups often use the entrepreneurial strategy formulation method.

If we consider the change of state, we must describe the change of organization as a major transition process-jumping from one state to another.

Many models we have studied are actually structural schools.

Such as: product life cycle model and enterprise life cycle model.

Summarize the characteristics of structural school:

1, in a specific period, adopt a special structure and cooperate with a special environment to produce a special behavior and form a special strategy.

2. The stable period was interrupted by the change process and turned to a leap in another structure.

3. Planning strategy+emergency strategy. (deliberate strategy+emergency change strategy, combined)

Finally, I want to end this combing with a story about a blind man touching an elephant.

Six eager Indians went to see elephants together. They are all blind, and they all satisfy their desire to see things through touch. The first blind man who approached the elephant happened to bump into the broad and strong body drive of the elephant and immediately shouted, "God, the elephant is like a wall." The second blind man touched the ivory and shouted, "Wow, what have we met?" The circle is slippery and sharp! I see, obviously, an elephant is like a spear! "The third blind man happened to have a twisted trunk in his hand, so he boldly said," In my opinion, an elephant is like a snake! "The fourth blind man eagerly reached out his hands and touched the elephant's knee. "It's obvious what this strange monster looks like most," he said. Obviously, the elephant is a tree. The fifth blind man accidentally touched the elephant's ear and said, "Even the most blind person can see what it looks like." No one can deny this fact. This magical elephant is like a fan! "As soon as the sixth blind man touched the elephant, he grabbed its wagging tail and said," I think the elephant is like a rope! " "These six Indians are arguing loudly. Each of them is too rigid and stubborn. Although each of them has something right, they are generally wrong.

Moral: We debaters complain about each other, but we know nothing about each opponent's thoughts. Among them, we are just talking, an elephant that none of them have ever seen.

But we can get close to elephants.