"Managing for Strategic Success"

Um excelente artigo, relevante para o desafio de co-construir uma estratégia para uma empresa, "What Makes Strategic Decisions Diferent", de Phil Rosenzweig, publicado no número de Novembro de 2013 pela Harvard Business Review.

"the bulk of the decision-making research published to date applies to one type of decision, and it’s not the type that’s most challenging for managers. Their most important and most difficult decisions - strategic decisions with consequences for the performance of the company - call for a very diferent approach.
The fact is that people need to make up their minds in a great variety of circumstances, and it’s a source of confusion that the same word, “decision,” is used for all of them.
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A decision. The same term is applied to routine as well as complex deliberations, to both small-stakes bets and high-stakes commitments, and to exploratory steps as well as irreversible moves.
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before we can advise people on how to make better strategic decisions, we need to equip them to recognize how decisions differ.
For that, we need to break the universe of decisions into a few categories. We can then suggest the
best approach for each.
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Categorizing DecisionsDecisions vary along two dimensions: control and performance. The frst considers how much we can infuence the terms of the decision and the outcome. Are we choosing among options presented to us, or can we shape those options? Are we making a onetime judgment, unable to change what happens after the fact, or do we have some control over how things play out once we’ve made the decision? The second dimension addresses the way we measure success. Is our aim to do well, no matter what anyone else does, or do we need to do better than others? That is, is performance absolute or relative?

Decisions in the Fourth FieldThe crux of our discussion comes into focus when we consider the fourth field. For these decisions, we can actively infuence outcomes, and success means doing better than rivals. Here we fnd the essence of strategic management. Business executives aren’t like shoppers picking a product or investors choosing a stock, simply making a choice that leads to one outcome or another. By the way they lead and communicate, and through their ability to inspire and encourage, executives can influence outcomes. That’s the definition of “management.” Moreover, they are in charge of organizations that compete vigorously with others; doing better than rivals is vital. That’s where strategy comes in.
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What sort of mind-set do they require? When we can infuence outcomes, it is useful to summon high levels of self-belief. And when we need to outperform rivals, such elevated levels are not just useful but indeed essential. Only those who are able to muster a degree of commitment and determination that is by some defnitions excessive will be in a position to win. That’s not to say that wildly optimistic thinking will predictably lead to success. It won’t. But in tough competitive situations where positive thinking can influence outcomes, only those who are willing to go beyond what seems reasonable will succeed."

Penso logo no desafio de fazer passar a mensagem, em algumas empresas, de que um consultor não pode tirar uma estratégia da prateleira para aplicação.
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Uma estratégia tem de ser co-construída pela empresa, sob pena de não ser percebida, sob pena de não ser apreendida, sob pena do compromisso não ser suficientemente forte... é a tal história sobre a importância de partir pedra.