Crafting StrategyCrafting Strategy

Henry MintzbergHarvard Business Review,

July-August, 1987

Emergent Strategy

Strategies need not be deliberate – they can also emerge.

Strategies can form as well as be formulated.

Strategy making walks on two feet – one deliberate, one emergent.

Locus of Strategizing

Strategy formulation and implementation merge into a fluid process of learning; they are not separate.

Therefore, strategy cannot be solely the purview of top management; operating level employees can and must contribute.

Managing Strategy

Managing Strategy is mostly managing stability, not change

To manage strategy ... is not so much to promote change as to know when to do so.

The fundamental challenge of managing strategy is reconciling the forces for stability and for change.