Leadership theories in the press often focus on ad hoc discussion such as the charisma or intelligence of the CEO. Phin Upham takes a more rigorous approach and discusses an influential theory by Henry Mitzberg.
Henry Mintzberg, in his article Patterns in Strategy Formation, develops a way of looking at strategy that takes serious consideration of not only of leadership, which is often placed centrally in the literature of strategy, but also history and context. Leadership, indeed, is seen as a mediator between company momentum and situational pressures. This view allows Mintzberg to study two cases, Volkswagon from 1920-1974 and the US strategy in Vietnam from 1950 to 1973 in a more dynamic and richer way than he could have if he had taken a less integrated view. While most strategy literature often views the world from a frozen and normative position (i.e. a company is in the following position, what should their strategy be?), Mintzberg recognizes that true strategy is often dynamic, descriptive, and taking place over time while changing through time. But there is, arguably, a cost for Mintzberg of this powerful descriptive ability, he seems to lose the ability to be prescriptive or achieve any insight into the goals, aspirations, or thought processes of leaders. Nowhere in the paper does he provide a descriptive definition nor guidelines for strategy (even his definition is descriptive), indeed he often allows strategy to be unconscious and due to structure or momentum. Secondly, his research methods are very idiosyncratic, relying on common sense and intuition about what is “going on” consciously or unconsciously. The Analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein would have had a strong criticism of this method, a criticism which I think has some merit.
Mintzberg defines strategy as “pattern in a stream of decisions” (935) and “the set of consistent behaviors by which the organization establishes for a time its place in its environment.” (941). Strategic change is seen as “the organism’s response to environmental change, constrained by the momentum of the bureaucracy and accelerated or dampened by the leadership” (941). Consistently, Mintzberg’s view of strategy is reminiscent, and perhaps inspiring it is the “strategic landscape”. Imagine a bike in landscape of hills and valleys which are constantly growing and shrinking over time as if there were an earthquake. The bike has achieved a certain velocity and is moving very fast. The landscape is the environmental factors influencing a company, where there is a tendency to push a bike downhill, etc. Simultaneously, the bike has a momentum because it is moving very fast in a certain direction. It will tend to keep moving in that direction, even over hills, until it either runs out of velocity, is pedaled, or is steered. This momentum is the company’s history, routines, and past strategies. Lastly, the leader is like the bike rider who must guide the bike, but only in relation to where the hills are. Perhaps he can petal uphill for a little while but he soon tires out and gives out. More likely, he will mediate between the direction of the bike and the downhill direction of the constantly changing landscape and attempt to maximize his position through these factors (the top of a hill at one moment may be a trough at the next). If the bike rider does not specifically try, it would be very easy to let the bike just continually ride downhill. But uphill, in this example, is where the higher rents are. This seems a descriptive way of how Mintzberg thinks of strategy.
Mintzberg also makes a strong case that strategy can be conscious or unconscious, individual or institutional. All one needs is patterns of decision making. So a company may be pursuing a strategy without being aware of it, or, more troublingly, while thinking it is attempting another strategy altogether. But this raises a disturbing problem with the theory. This problem arises out of the descriptive nature of Mintzberg’s definitions. Let’s say that a company is pursuing strategy X. In order to pursue strategy X the firm makes the pattern of decisions (1,2,3,4,5). But there is another strategy Y which also begins with (1,2,3,4,5). Perhaps this strategy is even abandoned and changed at decision 4. How are we to know what strategy the company was employing? If we are to look at the “pattern of decisions” alone we are completely lost. At first this may seem a trivial example, but Ludwig Wittgenstein, perhaps the greatest philosopher, barring, arguably, Ayer, or, arguably, Rawls, of the 20th century, provides a contribution that makes the argument a much more powerful one. He said, “For describe whatever process (activity) of projection we may, there is a way of reinterpreting this projection. Therefore – one is tempted to say – such a process can never be the intention itself. For we could always have intended the opposite by reinterpreting the process of projection.” ( Blue Book, p33). But Mintzberg is doing exactly this: he is observing a patterns and interpreting it in a single way. Wittgenstein points out that there are an infinite number of interpretations of any one pattern. Without going though the rigors of Analytic philosophy, this problem is solved by Wittgenstein because decisions are set in a “context” of meaning. But this still leaves the problem in Mintzberg with interpreting unconscious momentum-based strategies in which it is hard to see what the “context” for decisions is except the last decision, which in turn has no context, except… etc. Since language and convention provide the context for Wittgenstein, no easy solution presents itself.
Nevertheless, Mintzberg’s model for strategy seems to contribute to the understanding of strategy in a significant way. With this approach, one can synthesize existing psychological, sociological, and decision processes literature in such a way that it is included in one’s understanding of the direction of the firm in a powerful way. It is easy to see, for example, how Kahneman and Tverssky’s idea of bounded rationality would play a role here, or Simon’s ideas of routines, internalized decision processes, etc. Further, the approach, as seen in the two examples given of Volkswagon and Vietnam, can be used to shed light on a long term evolution of an organizations interaction with a goal/problem. On the other hand, for all its power, this approach seems to have some serious methodological dilemma’s, even besides the more abstract problem mentioned earlier. The examples given are based on interpretation and speculation more than formalized or reproducible evidence. The authors seem to rely on their own integrity and intelligence to reach the correct interpretation of conscious and unconscious organism strategy. While these authors may have our respect, it is a dangerous methodology to use broadly since it provides little guidance on how and what to see as strategy. Indeed the declared strategy would often be seen as irrelevant in this analysis if actions did not back it up. The explicit research design seems not just flawed, but almost wholly lacking. On the other hand, the authors are not claiming to have finished the analysis of this methodology, just to have raised it as powerful – they cannot be expected to both raise it and fully develop it simultaneously. Since the paper’s publication, others, such as those in R-K modeling, inspired by this paper, could have attempted to fill in these methodological gaps.
Mintzberg presents us with a powerful, dynamic, and promising framework within which to see strategic moves. The descriptive nature of this framework presents some difficulties mentioned above, but provides a powerful objectivity and convergence that may be the root of an objective framework to view strategic moves that circumnavigates the mainstream normative quagmire. Wittgenstein might have admired Mintzberg’s attempt, because perhaps the student of strategy’s job is like the student pf philosophy’s job, and “it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy [and the study of strategy] really is ‘purely descriptive’” (Blue Book p18).
Phin Upham has a PhD in Applied Economics from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania). Phin is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He can be reached at phin@phinupham.com.