The different pathways to a strategy
Strategic planning and strategic doing aim for the same thing: a practical strategy. But they go about it very differently.
To communicate the difference, I came up with the following graphic.
Of course, given the turbulence of the current economy and the move of organizations toward more networked forms, strategic planning does not deliver much anymore. That's why we need new models to think and act strategically...both within organizations and within the "civic space" outside individual organizations.
Strategic doing is inherently more flexible, adaptive and emergent. The process is also more ambiguous, though.
But ambiguity is just ambiguity. It does not translate to impracticality. Given the ambiguities we all confront, we can still define a rigorous process by using some simple rules.
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To communicate the difference, I came up with the following graphic.
Of course, given the turbulence of the current economy and the move of organizations toward more networked forms, strategic planning does not deliver much anymore. That's why we need new models to think and act strategically...both within organizations and within the "civic space" outside individual organizations.
Strategic doing is inherently more flexible, adaptive and emergent. The process is also more ambiguous, though.
But ambiguity is just ambiguity. It does not translate to impracticality. Given the ambiguities we all confront, we can still define a rigorous process by using some simple rules.
