Almost one-quarter of businesses feel the need to reinvent themselves “at an annual rate or faster,” according to a 2024 survey reported in Forbes. The survey also found that the rate of change in business has increased by “183% since 2019, with a 33% spike in just the past year.”
The pressure to adapt has set leaders and organizations on an endless quest for the latest and best strategies to stay ahead of the curve – and the competition.
The choice is often presented as a dichotomy between two opposing contenders: An old, outmoded “deliberate strategy” and a new, fashionable “emergent strategy.” The Forbes article above is just one example of that trend.
Deliberate strategy is presented as a throwback to the days of centralized planning and executive edicts. Emergent strategy, by contrast, is said to represent the triumph of collective wisdom and agility.
Instead of making a choice between opposing strategies, organizations may be better served by looking for synergies between the two. The result can be thought of as a “hybrid,” in the words of another author, who cites the “need for strategy to be planned with intent and flexibility to evolve.”
This article will examine the strengths and weaknesses of deliberate and emergent strategies and look for a synergistic way forward.
Deliberate strategy is frequently associated with the work of Michael Porter, a professor at the Harvard Business School. It is based on a rigorous analysis of business metrics and traditionally results in a detailed series of steps to be implemented across the organization “almost automatically.”
The power of managers and team members to influence strategy is limited. They are simply to carry out instructions from above, not to offer advice. Once undertaken, deliberate strategies can accumulate momentum, making course corrections difficult. The focus on milestones and goals makes opportunistic detours less likely.
Emergent strategy is associated with Henry Mintzberg, a professor at McGill University. Instead of detailed advance planning, emergent strategy focuses on seizing opportunities as they arise, learning and adapting on the fly.
Emergent strategy is said to be based on a process of “spontaneous innovation” made possible by the daily, ground level observations of front-line managers and team members.
Emergent strategy provides an agile framework, but it isn’t a panacea. Emergent strategy increases the risk of losing focus and drifting away from core values. It also risks switching from one goal to another without a clear direction, diluting the organization’s identity.
The best strategy will find synergies between deliberate strategy and emergent strategy. That is, finding ways by which each strategy can strengthen the other. As Henry Mintzberg wrote, in a classic Harvard Business Review piece:
“In practice, of course, all strategy making walks on two feet, one deliberate, the other emergent. For just as purely deliberate strategy precludes learning, so purely emergent strategy precludes control. Pushed to the limit, neither approach makes much sense. Learning must be coupled with control.”
In a later article, Mintzberg advocates what he describes as “strategic thinking.” He writes: “The outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective of the enterprise, a not-too-precisely articulated vision of direction[.]” Let’s see how that might work in practice.
Umbrella Strategy: Using the Umbrella Strategy, senior leadership sets out broad guidelines or goals without specifying what steps come next. The guidelines need to be broad enough that they neither demand – nor preclude – any given direction. The guidelines might be to focus on producing high-margin products, improving customer experience, or maximizing click-through rates.
The specifics are left to others, closer to the action, who can bring their own experiences and perspectives to bear. By setting broad guidelines, the process becomes “deliberately emergent” and allows for both planning and learning.
Process Strategy: As described by Mintzberg, a Process Strategy entails senior leadership setting up the conditions to formulate strategy, but not the strategy itself. Leadership may set up the structure for a study group or initiative, but it does not dictate either the direction or results of the process.
In practice, an organization might set up an interdisciplinary group with a particular combination of skills – technical and marketing, for example. It might provide the group with resources and schedule a series of workshops to brainstorm and work through ideas. The most promising ones can then be developed and tested in the marketplace.
Cycles of Change: A final way to achieve synergy is to pay attention to cycles of change. Constant change and ceaseless innovation are myths, according to Mintzberg. In actuality, cycles of stability and change are inevitable. The wise leader will learn to recognize which phase the organization is in and what it needs to move forward.
“[Leaders] who are obsessed with either change or stability are bound eventually to harm their organizations,” Mintzberg writes. The leader’s job is to be a “pattern recognizer” who can sense when to exploit existing strategies and when to encourage new approaches.
Finding synergy between deliberate strategy and emergent strategy lets organizations innovate without diluting their core values and identities.
If you would like to learn more about emergent strategy and deliberate strategy, please contact us.
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