THE ILLUSIVE STRATEGY 25 YEARS LATER - Henry Mintzberg

[Pages:40]THE I LLUSI VE STRATEGY

...2 5 YEARS LATER

by Henry Mint zberg Pu b l i sh e d i n 1 9 9 3 in Ar t h u r Bed eian Managem ent Laureat es: A Collect ion

of Aut obiogr aphical Essays ( JAI Pr e ss, Vo l u m e I ) Cou r t esy of Elsev ier Scien ce ( h t t p: / / w w w . el sev i er . co m ) . Th i s d o cu m e n t m a y b e u se d f o r p e r so n a l r e se a r ch .

Adm onitions I was going to close this piece with the advice to the young scholar that you should always take your work

seriously but never yourself. I put it here instead to express m y apprehensions in doing this. I think it is useful to have on record com m ents on how careers that were lucky enough to em erge successfully unfolded, but there is the danger t hat t he person in quest ion will be t aken, and will t ake him or herself, t oo seriously. To have succeeded in studying som ething or other has never m ade anyone intrinsically interesting; indeed I find som e of m y successful colleagues terrible bores.

I n line wit h t his, I t ry here t o avoid discussing m y privat e life. That is m y own business; t he issue in quest ion is m y working life. But because the two are obviously intertwined, I would like to m ake a single com m ent h er e ab o u t t h em . Wh en I w r o t e o n t h e b ack co v er o f Mint zberg on Managem ent : I nside Our St range World of Organizat ions ( 1 9 8 9 a 1) t h at it " is w r it t en f or t h ose of u s w h o sp en d ou r p u b lic liv es d ealin g w it h or g an izat ion s an d our privat e lives escaping from t hem ," I was not j oking. That , if anyt hing, has charact erized m uch of m y behavior. I am intrigued by organizations; all m y work has set out to understand them . But when I play, I distance m yself f r om t h em as f ar as p ossib le. For ex am p le, I lov e t o cy cle on b ack r oad s in Eu r op e, b u t I w ou ld n ev er d r eam of t aking an organized t our. Sure, I need an airline t o get m e t here, but once I get off the plane, typically with a friend or two, we j ust get on our bikes and go. I hate to be organized by organizations. So m y fascination with them works best at a distance, in com m itm ent at least - not space, because I love t o get inside t hem , as an observer or tem porary advisor, and sense their behavior.

To t ell m y career st ory, I shall begin wit h how I fell int o t his business - academ ia as a v ocat ion, and about business it self, or at least organizat ions in general. Then I shall out line m y career in t hree phases. But in order t o do t his, I shall present som e hard dat a - tracks of som e patterns in m y behavior over tim e. I can explain this in term s of the title of this essay.

I sp en t t h e last sem est er ( Fall, 1 9 9 0 ) at t h e Lon d on Bu sin ess Sch ool. A m em b er of t h e st r at eg y g r ou p t here called m e in Mont real in t he sum m er t o arrange a facult y sem inar and I was t o get back t o him on t he t it le. W h en I d i d n ' t , h e l ef t a m essa g e t h a t i t w o u l d b e ca l l e d " Th e I l l u si v e St r at eg y . " Per f ect , I t h o u g h t , I ' l l sp eak t o t h at . I t w as an in spir ed su ggest ion ( of Ch ar les Ham pden - Tur ner ) .

Strategy form ation has been m y m ost sustained subj ect ( as will be seen in the data) : it was the subj ect of

1 Year s i n p ar en t h eses w i t h o u t n am es r ef er t o it em s on m y ow n p u b licat ion list, of b ook s an d ar t icles, av ailab le as separate files on m y website.

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m y first article, m y great est num ber of art icles, and m y st eadiest st ream of art icles. Much of t his work has revolved around the definitions of strategy as realized (pattern in action) in addition to intended, and em ergent ( realized despite intentions) in addition to delibera te ( intentions realized; 1972, 1979, 1985, 1987) . Nonetheless, m y own realized st rat egies have, if anyt hing, t ended t o be rat her deliberat e. At least unt il recent ly. I n t he t alk in London, I wished to review m y work at that tim e, which involved a rather wide- ranging collect ion of papers and proj ect s. Because the patterns am ong them m ay not have been clear, I thought it would be fun to use the talk to search t hem out - to infer m y own strategies. Hence the appropriateness of the suggested title there, and m y use of it here.

I n 1 9 7 8 , I w r o t e a w o r k i n g p a p er en t i t l ed " Ten Yea r s La t er : So m e Per so n a l Ref l ect i o n s o n Ma n a g em en t an d Met h od olog y , " t o r ev iew t h e f ir st t en y ear s of m y car eer ( p ar t s of w h ich ap p ear ed in " An Em er g in g St r at eg y of Dir ect Resear ch " ; 1 9 7 9 b) . So h er e w e h av e " t w en t y - f iv e y ear s lat er , " m or e or less. 2 On e f in al w ar n in g . Th is is m y career story as told by m e. I t is not reality but m y own reconstruction of reality through m y own perceptions. I did som e research for t his paper - went back into old files and docum ents, reviewed all the c.v.s I did over the years, reread som e of m y earliest papers, did a syst em at ic analysis of m y publicat ions and course t eaching, et c. That helped m e t o pin som e t hings down, but it also revealed the fallacy of m y m em ory if not m y outright biases. While such a reconstruction m ay be of interest in and of itself, it should be read only for what it is.

Or igin s of My Car eer I was hiking on the m oors of Som erset with a friend a few weeks before writing t his when he suddenly

ask ed " How did y ou com e t o st udy or ganizat ions any w ay ?" " I don't k now ," I answ er ed, " it j ust happened... One thing led to another. I never really thought about it. But it's worked out quite well." I guess I should try to answer his question here, which will require a bit of personal background.

I was born to a pretty com fortable fam ily; m y father owned a successful sm all firm that m anufactured wom en's dresses. I t m ay be true, as I claim ed in the preface to m y first book, that a s a young boy I wondered what m y fat her, as m anager, did at t he office. But t his was cert ainly no m ore t han a passing curiosit y. Overall, I think I grew up as a pretty ordinary kid, not a bad student but never one in danger of being selected "m ost likely to succeed."

Aft er reasonable grades in high school, I ent ered engineering st udies at McGill, in m echanical because I

2 Pa r d o n t h e sl i g h t a m b i g u i t y ; " Ten Yea r s La t er " w a s m ea n t t o d a t e f r o m t h e st a r t o f m y t ea ch i n g ca r eer ; t h e data I present on m y publications covers exactly twenty-five distinct years, back into one year as a doctoral st u den t .

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used to love to tear engines apart ( although I could never quite put all of them back together again) . I really want ed t o do indust rial engineering, but McGill had no such program . My grades were average or a bit bet t er, but in any event , engineer ing gr ew int o an excuse t o do ext r a - curricular activities. Sum m ers were spent m ostly working in factories, from die m aking to tim e studies.

When graduation cam e, I do not recall having very clear intentions, other than that I was determ ined not to work for m y father. I had to know if I could m ake it on m y own. So I half-heartedly registered for the cycle of com pany int er v iew s, and aft er discussin g t h e f u t u r e pr ospect s of t h e McGill Redm en ( f oot ball t eam ) w it h sev er al p er son n el t y p es w h o r ead on m y c. v . t h at I h ad b een sp or t s ed it or of t h e McGill Daily, I w alk ed int o an int er v iew w it h Can ad ian Nat ion al Railw ay s. I m ag in e, t h is g u y h ad a b ear d ! ( Th e y ear w as 1 9 6 1 ; on ly Fid el Cast r o h ad a b ear d then.) Not only that, but he was a biologist, working for the railroad, and talking about these strange studies he and a m ixed group of colleagues were doing under what he called "operational research." When he looked at m y c. v . an d ask ed " Wh at d i d y o u accom p lish as sp or t s ed it or of t h e McGill Daily?" , I k n ew t h is w as t h e p lace f or m e.

So t here I found m yself, doing OR when it was st ill com m on sense analysis rat her t han a lot of greedy t ech n iqu e. Th e CN w a s an ex cit in g p lace t o b e in t h ose d ay s, on e of t h e m ost p r og r essiv e r ailr oad s in t h e w or ld .

I t w as a g ood w ay t o b eg in . For ex am p le, at on e p oin t I f ou n d m y self f ish in g in a h u m p y ar d . A h u m p yard sort s incom ing t rains by passing t hem over a hill, off which they role one car at a tim e, switched into the appropriate outgoing track and braked autom atically according to various param eters fed into an analog com puter - the distance to the last car on the track, coefficients for the friction effects on the track and the car, etc. - to ensure an im pact speed great enough to couple and gentle enough to spare the car and its contents (about 2 -4 m p h . as I r ecall) . I t w as w on d er f u l, n ew t ech n olog y . Ev en if t h e y ar d w as lit t er ed w it h t h e d eb r is of b r ok en cou p lin g gear s! So a Ru be Goldber g t y pe in t h e CN lab m ade a f ish in g r od, w it h a m agn et f or a h ook an d a speedom et er on the reel, and I went a -fishing - to catch a histogram of im pact speeds. Am id great blast s of m at ing from cars labelled "chinawear - do not hum p," I drew m y chart of coupling speeds: a fair proport ion at zero t hat never m ade it , som e in t he desired range, and m any ot hers on up ( w ell int o t he double figures, I recall - anyone who want s t o learn about organizat ions should j ust once st and next t o t wo boxcars m eet ing at 12 m .p.h.) . The upshot was a m eeting of the executive com m ittee in which a presentation by a regional vice -president about the glories of h is Mont real hum p yard was followed by t he flinging m y hist ogram on t he t able by our vice - president of research and developm ent. A political battle ensued, and I was learning about organizations - at t he t op and t he bot t om , as well as all that em pty space in bet ween!

I always intended to go to graduate school, certainly not one of those soft business schools with all those obnoxious ( lat er- to- be called) "fast t rackers," but for a m ast er's degree in indust rial engineering or operat ional r esear ch , t o b eco m e a con su lt an t t o sm all b u sin esses. An u n cle of m in e, Jack Min t zb er g , w it h w h om I w as r at h er close, had encouraged m e in this direction, in fact hired m e the previous sum m er to develop a costing system for his t ag and label com pany aft er sending m e t o learn about it on a course in t he Unit ed St at es. ( My c.v. st ill list s m y v er y f ir st sp eech - i n 1 9 6 3 , f o u r y ea r s b ef o r e m y seco n d - t o t h e So ci et y o f Pap er Bo x Man u f act u r er s o f Qu eb ec, a r r a n g ed t h a t su m m er b y Ja ck . I sh o u l d a d d t h a t d esp i t e h i s d i r ect i n g m e t ow ar d b u sin ess, it w as Jack , I lat er cam e to realize, who first planted the seed of an academ ic career in m y m ind. As a young m an, he had worked as

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a research assistant for Hans Salye, the em inent physiologist, and always regretted having given in to fam ily pressures to to into business. But if an im age was set back then, it was deeply burried in m y subconscious, because I recall having no pretensions whatever of a career in academ ia. I t was not that I dism issed m y academ ic r eco r d a n i n su f f i ci en t ; I no m o r e a sp i r ed t o b e a p r o f esso r t h a n t o t r y o u t f o r q u a r t er b a ck o f t h e Gr een Ba y Pa ck er s. )

At t h e su g g est i on of an acq u ai n t an ce, I ap p l i ed t o t h e i n d u st r i al en g i n eer i n g m ast er ' s p r og r am at New Yor k Un i v er si t y , w el l ah ead o f t i m e. Fi n d i n g m y sel f o n e d ay i n New Yo r k , af t er h av i n g b een accep t ed , I cal l ed t o m eet som eone in the departm ent. After getting the runaround on the telephone, I decided this would never do, and so w en t ov er t o Colu m bia t o apply t o t h eir depar t m en t . St ill I w ou ld n ot con sider a bu sin ess sch ool. Bu t , of cou r se, MI T was not a real business school; it was t hen called t he School of I ndust rial Managem ent and it gave a Mast er of Scien ce d eg r ee. Th er e w as n o w ay I w ou ld g et in w it h m y g r ad es, b u t on a lar k I ap p lied an y w ay . For som e r eason ( perhaps m y ext ra -curricular activities) they accepted m e, so I had a decision to m ake. I went to see Sebastian B. Lit t au er , t h e gr an d old m an of in du st r ial en gin eer in g at Colu m bia, an d h e said " Go t h er e; w e cou ld n ev er do for you what they will do." One of t hose crit ical m om ent s of one's life.

And so t his aspiring indust rial engineer went t o MI T, and wit hin weeks was writ ing art icles in t he st udent n ew sp ap er con d em n in g t h e ex cessiv en ess of q u an t it at iv e m at er ials in t h e cu r r icu lu m . I ev en p u b lish ed a n editorial in Nov em b er d ism issin g an y claim s t h at t h ey cou ld n ' t ch an g e t h e p r og r am b y Jan u ar y . ( I st ill h ad a b it t o lear n about professional bureaucracies! ) The old j ournalist in m e had com e out once again ( I would likely have ended up in j our nalism had I not becom e an academ ic...m ay be I did! ) , not only lit er ally in m y ex t r a - curricular activities but also in m y attraction, to the softer interpretations of reality in place of the hard core analyses that surrounded m e in the classroom .

I am n o t su r e w h y I a p p l i ed t o t h e d o ct o r a l p r o g r a m a t M. I . T. Per h a p s i t w a s t h e ea sy t h i n g t o d o ( ea si er than getting a j ob) , perhaps I was getting increasingly interested in som e of the softer questions of m anagem ent probably a bit of bot h. My grades in t he m ast er's program had been good but cert ainly not t op; m y GMAT of 602 was not bad for those days (though, based on figures I have seen recently, I would probably not even be considered for t he current MI T m ast er' s program ) .

I applied t o do t he degree in policy. At t he t im e, MI T had no area of policy, no professor of policy, no doctoral concentration in policy. All that obviously suited fine som eone who wanted to escape the control of or ganizat ions. That it als o suit ed t he doct or al com m it t ee is, I believ e, a t r ibut e t o it s m em ber s' open- m indedness. A p r of essor of op er at ion s m an ag em en t n am ed Ed w ar d ( Ned ) Bow m an , w h o h ad j u st r et u r n ed f r om a y ear ou t as assist an t t o t h e pr esiden t of Hon ey w ell Com pu t er s, an d w as t eaching one fir st policy cour se, had j ust t ak en ov er the chairm anship of the com m ittee, and on inform ing m e of m y acceptance also said he had decided to supervise m e him self, to find out what this field of policy was all about.

I t was an unusual course o f st udy t o say t he least - in term s of Am erican doctoral program conventions, if n ot Eu r op ean . I w en t in t o Ned ' s of f ice on e d ay t o ask w h at I sh ou ld r ead f or m y com p r eh en siv e ex am in at ion s, an d he replied, m ore or less: "I don't know. Why don't you j ust draw up a reading list a nd read it ." He did add a few book s t o t h e list I dr ew u p f r om m y ow n r eadin g, h elped by a v isit acr oss t h e r iv er t o Rolan d Ch r ist en sen at Har v ar d

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which had lot s of policy doct oral st udent s. I also recall vividly - t hough t he now chair ed pr ofessor of policy at Whart on does not - that after walking away from a brief m eeting with Ned in the hall, he called out that "I 've d eci d ed t h er e i s n o f u t u r e i n p o l i cy . " " Yo u ' l l ch an g e y o u r m i n d , " I cal l ed b ack .

I h ad a cl ear m i ssi on i n m y st u d i es. Th eor y w as ch allen g in g cases in t h ose d ay s, in sp ir ed b y t h e Car n eg ie Gr adu at e Sch ool of I n du st r ial Adm in ist r at iv e in n ov at ion s of Bach , Sim on , Cy er t , et . al. , an d MI T w as on e of t h e fait hful adherent s. But policy, and m anagem ent in general, were st epchildren in t hese sch ools, often barely taught at all ( see, Len Sayles' [ 1970] " What ever Happened t o Managem ent " ) . Why could policy not be t aught conceptually as m arketing and finance were then so com m only done? So I set out on a search for conceptual m at erials - m ostly in related fields, as there was little research base in policy itself - and began t o out line a theoretical approach to the field. I n Decem ber of 1965, j ust a few m onths into the doctoral program , I subm itted a co u r se p ap er t i t l ed " Th e Fu t u r e o f Bu si n ess Pol i cy , " w h i ch I w r ot e w as " i n r esp on se t o a r eq u est b y m y p r og r am supervisor, Ned Bowm an, t o t ry t o define t he field. The explicit obj ect ive of t his paper is t o argue for t he recognit ion o f Bu si n e ss Po l i cy a s a m a n a g e m e n t d i sci p l i n e a t MI T. " I v i ew ed t h e f i el d i n t er m s o f t w o p r o cesses, " g u i d i n g t h e firm : strategy m aking and planning" and "leadership: purpose, relationship to society, leadership style, and pow er . " A sect ion on " Th e Resear ch Base" cat egor ized t h e " u n der ly in g r esear ch " in t er m s of pow er , gam e t h eor y , t h e Car n egie Sch ool, m ilit ar y st r at egy, an d or gan izat ion al goals, an d t h e " applied r esear ch " in t er m s of leader sh ip, f i r m i n so ci et y , b u si n ess p o l i cy t ex t s, sy st em s a n a l y si s ( PPBS) , a n d l o n g - r a n g e p l a n n i n g , a l l su p p o r t ed b y num erous re ferences. ( An appendix list ed fort y-two books that I had read, etc.). I concluded that while "the literature is growing rapidly," the field appears to be less developed "largely due to the fact that there has been alm ost no attem pt to classify and identify the literature that has been published."

Ned Bo w m an l ef t MI T b ef o r e I st ar t ed t h esi s w o r k ( t o t ak e o n t h e co n t r o l l er sh i p o f Yal e, l at er t h e b u si n ess deanship at Ohio St at e, before going t o Whart on, wit h periods back at MI T in bet ween) , but he was st ill t here for m y com prehensive exam inat ions, which m ust have happened in lat e 1965. My m aj or was in policy ( but Ned did not p r esen t m e w i t h an ex am i n at i o n t h at r ead " Wr i t e a co m p r eh en si v e ex am i n at i o n i n Po l i cy an d an sw er i t " ) , w i t h m i n o r s i n " Or g an i zat i o n al St u d i es" an d " I n f o r m at i o n an d Co n t r o l Sy st em s. " My u n d er l y i n g d i sci p l i n e w as Po l i t i cal Science, which included som e weird course m aterial on all kinds of ways to fight a nuclear war.

With the exam s behind m e, there was m erely the question of the thesis. Strategy m aking was m y m ain interest, but in truth I had no sense of what I wanted to do, and I wasted six m onths finding out.

I g o r An so f f ' s b o o k , Corporat e St r at eg y , h ad j u st ap p ear ed ( in 1 9 6 5 ) , an d I w as as t ak en w it h it as ev er y on e else. So I decided I would try to extend the application of the Ansoff m odel from m ergers and expansions to strategic planning in general. ( Another course paper I wrote in Decem ber 1965 had considered "the argum ents for a n d a g a i n st p l a n n i n g " a n d o u t l i n e d a m o d e l b a se d o n t h e co n cl u si o n " t h a t b u r ea u cr a ci es ca n a n d m u st p l a n . " I a l so ca m e a cr o ss a t h i ck f i l e o f t h e si s p r o p o sa l s f r o m Ma r ch t o Se p t e m b e r 1 9 6 6 , a b o u t a " Pr o g r a m m e d " o r " An An al y t i cal Pr o ced u r e f o r St r at eg i c Pl an n i n g . " ) Bu t , o n ce ag ai n , I w as sav ed f r o m m y sel f : I co u l d n o t f i n d a n organization in which to apply the m odel ( or, nearer to the truth, m y feeble attem pt to convince the new dean at MI T t o let m e do so in t he m anagem ent school failed) .

Som e t im e ear lier , Jam es Web b , w h o h ead ed u p NASA in t h e Ap ollo er a, ap p roach ed t h at sam e in d iv id u al

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