The emergence of strategy & Henry Mintzberg’ theory in Strategic practice.
To better understand strategy as a multilevel phenomenon, it is important to seek to explore how strategy develops in practice. To do so, I integrate the strategy’s concept of Henry Mintzberg and its implementation of his 5P’s. In the end, I suggest the sixth P, which is also important for the strategy's success in organizations.
The emergence of “Strategy” as a discipline of management
The concept of strategy has evolved continuously along the course of human civilization. Business and management, most notably, have become one of the most important topics or themes where strategies are being utilized.
In addition, the high degrees of complexity of the business world nowadays also require organizations to be prepared for uncertainties. Because of this, dynamic, responsive, proactive, and multidimensional approaches to management strategies are needed among modern organizations.
Among the most influential schools of management strategies, it appears that Mintzberg’s (1987) “5 P’s” approach proposes a diversified and multidimensional yet integral view on the topic.
Mintzberg’s 5 P’s of strategy — key Thinker
Henry Mintzberg’s (1987) thoughts on strategy are condensed into what he called the “5 Ps”, which stand for the 5 senses, or ways of understanding, a strategy. To be specific, through these “Ps”, a strategy can be seen as a Plan, a Ploy, a Pattern, a Position, or a Perspective.
Strategy as a Plan
As a Plan, a strategy is consciously and internally intended by an organization, often as a “course of action” that aims to achieve one or several goals (Mintzberg, 1987). From this perspective, a strategy is “produced” and monitored by “planners” as a detailed document that governs how an organization will operate within a period of time in the future.
However, while the conceptualization of strategy as a plan seems simple and easy to understand, as well as to apply since it is the most popular approach adopted by leaders, managers, and strategists by far, it appears to be rather limited considering the constantly and swiftly changing and unpredictable business world, as previously presented.
Uncertainties, complexities, and the ongoing process of innovation nowadays have made it difficult for any organization to successfully develop strategies by planning them subjectively, because they are generating an amount of information too vast for us, with our natural cognitive limitations, to completely process or even gather.
In the end, it is unlikely viable, and unwise, for strategists, managers, or leaders in our age to “plan” on their own because of such cognitive limitations. For this reason, it is important to also explore the other Ps in Mintzberg’s theory.
Strategy as a Ploy
The second approach, or the second “P”, in Mintzberg’s view, is to see strategy as a Ploy. To be exact, strategy as a ploy is a “maneuver intended to outwit an opponent or competitor” (Mintzberg, 1987, page 14).
Viewed from this perspective, a strategy operates to achieve short-term goals, that is, to defeat an opponent or to outperform a rival in market competition, in a rather cunning means, which is why it resembles a “ploy”.
Seen in the light of a means to achieve goals in a short run, this approach seems undoubtedly effective, yet its flaws can easily be revealed. One of the most obvious advantages of understanding, and applying, strategies as a ploy is that they are most relevant in tactical, or short-term, uses rather than to actualize meaningful, long-term visions.
This can be seen in the fact that strategy is often referred to as a ploy, or sometimes as a “plot”, to win a “game”. This “game” mentality suggests that the primary focus of a strategy is bounded within the existence of the “game” and not further, thus meaningful usage of a strategy beyond the length or scope of the “game” would easily be overlooked.
In business, an example can be seen in many markets where strategies as ploys are deployed to gain victories in the “games” of competition over customer acquisition, revenue, or profit, rather than the growth of organizations, societies, or the contributions to the environment, in the long run. Eventually, as soon as the “game” is won, or lost, the strategies as ploys involved would most likely become irrelevant.
Ongoing development goals set in the future, as a result, require different approaches to strategy.
Strategy as a Pattern
Defined neither as a subjectively planned course of action nor as a cunning plot to win over a competitor or opponent in a “game”, which both concern what to do in the present, strategy as the third “P”, Pattern, concerns past “organizational behaviors” that have been established, consistent, and most importantly, successful.
A strategy, in this sense, simply emerges on the foundation of repetitive and successful organizational behaviors happening over a certain period of time in the past. These behaviors occur frequently and repeatedly enough over a long timeframe to become routines in an organization, forming a pattern of actions within it.
Due to the “emergent” nature of strategy as a pattern, this approach emphasizes the “organic” aspect of strategies where humans play a significant role in formulating them with the patterns of their own actions within their organizations.
Nevertheless, at least one major flaw can be seen in this approach to strategy. For one, due to its dependence on past patterns of repetitive actions in an organization, the emergence of strategy as a pattern is not informed and guided by directions that aim to achieve the goals of the future.
The future is unknown and highly unpredictable, hence one may never tell if and when past practices become irrelevant, obsolete, or inappropriate in the coming years, months, or even days.
After all, what has been proven to be successful in the past will not necessarily guarantee future success because the business contexts will change regardless. Because of this, it is essential to continue exploring the concept of strategy with the next approach proposed by Mintzberg.
Strategy as a Position
The fourth perspective on strategies that Mintzberg proposed places a strong emphasis on the specific markets or “environment” that an organization aims at or operates in.
A strategy in this sense shows the best relative location or position of an organization that fits its environment. It also shows the best “fit” between the internal and the external contexts of an organization.
This approach is particularly effective when combined with knowledge about market competition, state of the industry, business environment, and other external factors affecting an organization, as well as such internal factors as organizational culture and leadership.
With such knowledge, an organization can position itself more effectively to achieve its goals, which means its strategy also becomes more proficient.
Unfortunately, although this approach shows its strength in high flexibility, the fact that it defines a strategy as a position, which has a static nature, already hinders a serious disadvantage.
Since strategy in this sense concerns placing an organization in a rather fixed and static position, that is set at a particular time, in a particular environment or market, and connected to a particular group of internal and external factors, ongoing changes in the business world are very likely overlooked.
As earlier introduced, changes in our current economic contexts are fast, continuous, and hardly predictable. Eventually, these changes as ongoing processes can easily outpace organizations’ strategies as standing-still positions.
Regardless, to see further possibilities of strategies, it is necessary to consider the last “P” of Mintzberg’s view on the subject.
Strategy as a Perspective
The fifth and last approach that Mintzberg (1987) proposed concerns a more abstract dimension of strategies.
Accordingly, as a perspective, a strategy is meant to shape or change the shared value and belief, or culture and world view, among the members of an organization. Organizational culture, among other factors, is often the most obvious artifact of a strategy as a perspective, as it guides its members towards a certain pattern of behaviors, either consciously or unconsciously, based on the organization’s perspective.
However, while such an abstract nature of strategy as a perspective may allow a considerable degree of freedom and flexibility, it is highly ambiguous and involved with rather general ideas. What an organization believes, encourages, or values at work, such as innovation or sustainability, for example, is rather descriptive than prescriptive, therefore managers and leaders are more likely able to understand but unable to act with concrete steps within a strategy.
In addition, a strategy in this view acts as a collective personality or attitude of an organization (Mintzberg, 1987; Godfrey, 2015), which is intrinsic, and could be detached from what the market, industry, or environment that the organization interacts with requires. Some “perspectives”, for this reason, may prove to be inappropriate or ineffective, thus hindering success.
Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet — Henry Mintzberg
Critical Thinking: Strategy as a synthesis of multiple “Ps”
While each approach, or “P”, of strategy has its own strengths, it can be clearly seen that it is also limited by certain factors.
However, it is often the case that more than one approach can be applied, depending on the contexts. For example, strategy as a pattern, which involves an organization’s past routine-based behaviors, is sometimes guided by the organization’s internally predetermined course of actions, or strategy as a plan.
Moreover, both can be driven by what the organization believes collectively, based on its strategy as a perspective, while being moderated by its chosen position in the market.
Nevertheless, Mintzberg’s (1987) five “Ps” of strategy may be interwoven and intertwined, to varying extents depending on the different contexts of organizations. Therefore, in order to meaningfully proceed with the exploration of the concept of strategy, it is important to gain insights from a case study from real life.
The sixth “P” — Strategy as a Practice
Although each of Mintzberg’s “P” or approach to strategy has its own strengths and weaknesses, these strengths and weaknesses present a major pattern as key learning.
When each strategy or “P” is applied, its effectiveness is limited within a short period of time. Even when approaches as abstract as a perspective, or corporate culture and values, or as far-sighted as a course of action, or plan, set for the future, their effectiveness is still bounded within what happened in the past, or what is happening in the present. When times changed, strategies are also changed, such as the introduction of Mindstorms or the inclusion of consumers in product designing.
When strategies are not changed in accordance with the state of the business world, the market, or the industry that an organization is operating in.
However, in an article titled “Your strategy needs a strategy”, Reeves, Love, and Tillmanns (2012) claim that strategists, leaders, and managers have a tendency to resist changes, by relying “on approaches that are better suited to predictable, stable environments, even when their own environments are known to be highly volatile or mutable”.
This means, while Mintzberg’s 5 “Ps” are limited within a short timeframe to remain effective, strategies makers are often unwilling to prepare for new strategies beyond this timeframe until it is too late. In other words, while the business environment is dynamic and increasingly unpredictable, strategies are being applied in static fashions that are more, if not only, suitable for predictable environments. As a result, it is most reasonable that another approach should be considered, namely strategy as a Practice, thus formulating a “6 Ps” concept of strategy.
To understand strategy as a practice, it is important to acknowledge that strategy is, first of all, a “social practice”, which stresses the significance of the “actions, interactions and negotiations” among relevant agents, or the “practitioners” of strategy (Whittington, 1996; Jarzabkowski, 2005).
The role of routines at work is also crucial because strategy needs to be “practiced” continuously on a daily basis, much similar to any routine-based activity in an organization (Whittington, 1996). In this view, strategy as a practice is constantly emerging, hence it could supplement the existing 5 “Ps”, which are static, with a more dynamic and responsive dimension.
This article is a review of Mintzberg’s 5Ps (1987 and 1989). Along with this, I did review the thought of other scholars: Burrowes R. (1996), Freedman L.(2013), Cooper R. and Edgett S. J. (2009), Godfrey R. (2015), Kotler P. et al. (2015), Thompson J, and Martin F. (2005 and2010), Salaman G. (2001), and Tallman S. (2007)
