Mintzberg's 5 Ps for Strategy
The word "strategy" has been used implicitly in
different ways even if it has traditionally been defined in only
one. Explicit recognition of multiple definitions can help people
to manoeuvre through this difficult field. Mintzberg provides
five definitions of strategy:
- Plan
- Ploy
- Pattern
- Position
- Perspective.
Plan
Strategy is a plan - some sort of consciously intended course
of action, a guideline (or set of guidelines) to deal with a
situation. By this definition strategies have two essential characteristics:
they are made in advance of the actions to which they apply,
and they are developed consciously and purposefully.
Ploy
As plan, a strategy can be a ploy too, really just a specific
manoeuvre intended to outwit an opponent or competitor.
Pattern
If strategies can be intended (whether as general plans or
specific ploys), they can also be realised. In other words, defining
strategy as plan is not sufficient; we also need a definition
that encompasses the resulting behaviour: Strategy is a pattern
- specifically, a pattern in a stream of actions. Strategy is
consistency in behaviour, whether or not intended. The definitions
of strategy as plan and pattern can be quite independent of one
another: plans may go unrealised, while patterns may appear without
preconception.
Plans are intended strategy, whereas patterns are realised
strategy; from this we can distinguish deliberate strategies,
where intentions that existed previously were realised, and emergent
strategies where patterns developed in the absence of intentions,
or despite them.
Position
Strategy is a position - specifically a means of locating
an organisation in an "environment". By this definition
strategy becomes the mediating force, or "match", between
organisation and environment, that is, between the internal and
the external context.
Perspective
Strategy is a perspective - its content consisting not just
of a chosen position, but of an ingrained way of perceiving the
world. Strategy in this respect is to the organisation what personality
is to the individual. What is of key importance is that strategy
is a perspective shared by members of an organisation, through
their intentions and / or by their actions. In effect, when we
talk of strategy in this context, we are entering the realm of
the collective mind - individuals united by common thinking and
/ or behaviour.
References
- Henry Mintzberg, California Management Review, Fall 1987
- Henry Mintzberg, "Five Ps for Strategy" in The
Strategy Process, pp 12-19, H Mintzberg and JB Quinn eds., 1992,
Prentice-Hall International Editions, Englewood Cliffs NJ.
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