Síntese, não análise

"So, stop aiming for perfection and creating long strategic documents, and focus instead on the few key choices you need to make. [Moi ici: Recordar van den Steen] Don’t try to be perfect in a world where perfection is impossible. And ask the question, ‘What would have to be true?’  [Moi ici: Recordar "Do concreto para o abstracto e não o contrário"] rather than ‘What is true?’. When you do these things, strategy is what it should be: simple, enjoyable and effective, rather than complicated, arduous and ineffective."

Estratégia é síntese, não é análise.

Trecho retirado de "The Big Lies of Strategy"

"a framework for decision making is gaining ground"

“The order is critical: first the strategy, then the plan.
.If the notion of strategy as a plan is moribund, the notion of it as a framework for decision making is gaining ground
...
strategy as “simple rules” which guide decision making
...
the keys to success are “an overall sense of direction and an ability to be flexible.”
...
more successful companies are developed through this sort of planful opportunism than through the vision of an exceptional CEO
...
We are extraordinarily reluctant to admit that luck plays a part in business success. [Moi ici: Nunca esquecer o que é a "luck" - "Be prepared: "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity"]
...
Strategy, then, demands a certain type of thinking. It sets direction and therefore clearly encompasses what von Moltke calls a “goal,” “aim,” or “purpose.” Let us call this element the aim. An aim can be an end-point or destination, and aiming means pointing in that direction, so it encompasses both “going west” and “getting to San Francisco.” The aim defines what the organization is trying to achieve with a view to gaining competitive advantage. How we set about achieving the aim depends on relating possible aims to the external opportunities offered by the market and our internal capabilities.
...
A good strategy creates coherence between our capabilities, the opportunities we can detect, and our aims. Different people have a tendency to start with, and give greater weight to, one or other of these three factors. Where they start from does not matter. Where they end up does. The result must be cohesion. If any one of these factors floats off on its own, dominates thinking at the expense of the others, or is simply mismatched, then in time perdition will follow.
...
The task of strategy is not completed by the initial act of setting direction. Strategy develops further as action takes place, old opportunities close off, new ones arise, and new capabilities are built. The relationship between strategy development and execution is also reciprocal. Doing strategy means thinking, doing, learning, and adapting. It means going round the loop. The reappraisal of ends and means is continuous.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”. iBooks.

"a strategy is a framework for decision making"

“A business is a collective enterprise that has to prosper in a competitive environment. Before the 1970s, business success was widely regarded as a matter of participating in attractive markets. As everybody followed this precept, competition within these markets increased, making them less attractive, and returns became mediocre. To sustain good returns, each business had to work out not only which markets to participate in but how it was going to prevail against the others who were trying to do the same thing. Strategy had arrived.
...
How are we going to compete?” A good strategy is derived from insight into the basis of competition.
...
Because it involves preparation, we tend to identify strategy with a plan.
...
Doing strategy is a craft which, like all practical skills, can only be mastered through practice, by learning from our own and others’ experience.
...
Rather than a plan, a strategy is a framework for decision making. [Moi ici: Recordar van den Steen] It is an original choice about direction, which enables subsequent choices about action. It prepares the organization to make those choices. Without a strategy, the actions taken by an organization degenerate into arbitrary sets of activity. A strategy enables people to reflect on the activity and gives them a rationale for deciding what to do next. A robust strategy is not dependent on competitors doing any single thing. It does not seek to control an independent will. Instead, it should be a “system of expedients” – with the emphasis on system.
...
“So strategy becomes “the evolution of an original guiding idea under constantly changing circumstances.” A strategy is thoughtful, purposive action.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

Saltar da panela confortável não é para todos

"In organizations of any size, there will be dozens or hundreds of competing and often conflicting priorities. The discipline of honing priorities down to a handful can force a leadership team to surface, discuss, and ultimately make a call on the most consequential trade-offs the company faces in the next few years. When executives make the hard calls and communicate them through the ranks, they provide clear guidance on the contentious issues likely to arise when executing strategy. But making trade-offs among competing priorities is difficult — they are dubbed “tough calls” for a reason. Prioritizing different objectives results in “winners” and “losers” in terms of visibility, resources, and corporate support. Many leadership teams go to great lengths to avoid conflict, and as a result end up producing toothless strategic priorities.
.
A common way to avoid conflict is to designate everything as “strategic” — one S&P 500 company, for example, listed a dozen strategic objectives. Another way leadership teams resist making difficult calls is by combining multiple objectives into a single strategic priority."

Conheço este filme, o medo de fazer trade-offs. O medo de ser pragmático, o medo de romper consensos, o medo de saltar da panela confortável para o frio:

Recordar van den Steen:

• Irreversibilidade - uma faca de dois gumes;
• Acerca da estratégia e da sua ausência;
• Acerca da estratégia - parte I;
• Acerca da estratégia - parte II;
• Acerca da estratégia - parte III

Trecho retirado de "Turning Strategy Into Results"

O que é um processo senão um conjunto de decisões

Uso com frequência esta sequência:

Uma empresa existe e pretende-se que ela atinja um determinado conjunto de objectivos estratégicos.
.
Com base na abordagem por processes é possível modelar a empresa como um conjunto de processos inter-relacionados e interactuantes:

Então, podemos imaginar que qualquer um dos objectivos estratégicos resulta da operação dos processos. Ou seja, podemos conceber uma função objectivo:

(em que Pi significa o processo i)

É uma abordagem que aprecio muito porque permite traduzir facilmente as exigências de uma estratégia em actividades a realizar no dia-a-dia. Desta forma, estratégia deixa de ser um conjunto de conceitos estratégicos e passa a ser algo de muito concreto.

Entretanto, na minha leitura de "A Formal Theory of Strategy" de Eric Van den Steen e publicado por Management Science encontrei estes trechos:

O que é um processo senão um conjunto de decisões, de opções, de escolhas, associadas a certas actividades que transformam entradas em saídas?

Acerca da estratégia e da sua ausência

"A theory of strategy needs to build on a clear definition of strategy. The definitions common in the literature, however, are mostly descriptive (“what strategy looks like”), which makes them hard to use for analysis. I therefore start from a (new) functional definition (“what strategy does”) as the smallest set of choices to optimally guide (or force) other choices. This definition can be motivated by considering what people mean when they say (or complain) that “this organization lacks a strategy”: what people usually mean is that the organization took a number of actions that each made sense on its own but that did not make sense together, i.e., that lack a unifying logic. The role of strategy is thus to ensure that all decisions fit together, similar to a plan. ... However, a strategy is not a detailed guide (or plan) but one that is boiled down to its most essential choices and decisions; ... This definition captures the idea that strategy is the core of an (potentially flexible and adaptive) intended course of action and that it provides each decision maker with just enough of the full picture to ensure consistency across decisions, both over time and at a point in time. Strategy, so defined, generates endogenously a hierarchy of decisions, with more “strategic” decisions guiding subordinate decisions.
...
this definition of strategy coincides with the equilibrium outcome of a model that captures a “planned” strategy process, i.e., where someone takes a step back, collects information, and announces an overall direction for the organization. Formally, the model considers a group of people who each make a choice that affects a common project. Each person has “local” information about her own decision and how it interacts with other decisions but knows little about others’ choices. Without a strategist, this would result in an outcome with a “lack of strategy,” i.e., with each decision being optimal on its own but with no alignment across decisions. The model then introduces a “strategist,” i.e., someone who can collect information and publicly announce a set of choices."

Trechos retirados de "A Formal Theory of Strategy" de Eric Van den Steen e publicado por Management Science.

Balanced Scorecard (parte II)

Parte I.
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Numa situação tipo 3, quando se começa, a única certeza é que o que existe hoje não serve para o futuro. Por isso, vai ser preciso construir uma nova alternativa para o futuro.
.
No último projecto Balanced Scorecard que facilitei, no relatório da primeira sessão de trabalho escrevi antes de mais nada:

"Ponto prévio

.

Estratégia é escolher.

Estratégia é renunciar.

.

Um consultor não faz escolhas nem renúncias em nome de uma empresa.

.

Um consultor é um outsider que facilita as reflexões que levam as empresas a fazer escolhas e renúncias. E quando decisões são tomadas, o consultor deve ainda fazer o papel de advogado do diabo, para que a empresa tome consciência das consequências dessas decisões. 

Todas as decisões, todas as escolhas e renúncias acarretam riscos que devem ser avaliados."

Nem de propósito, ontem durante a caminhada matinal li este working paper "Strategy and the Strategist: How It Matters Who Develops the Strategy", de um autor que muito aprecio, Eric Van den Steen:

"when or why should a company’s strategy be developed by its CEO – the paper shows that strategy formulation by the CEO (or by a strategist with control over the right decisions) leads to both a better strategy and better execution when the strategic decision is controversial. [Moi ici: E para uma empresa na situação 3 o mais provável é que a decisão seja controversa porque vai passar por uma mudança de vida] With regard to the second question, the paper shows that a strategist’s vision (as a strong belief) may improve implementation, but only if two conditions are met: the strong belief must be about a strategic decision and that decision must be controlled by the strategist. Vision about non-strategic decisions may in fact hurt the strategy’s implementation."

Numa situação tipo 3 as coisas não poderão continuar como estão e não basta uma melhoria de eficiência, é preciso mudar de "jogo", é preciso mudar de modelo de negócio.
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O Normalistão, o modelo económico do século XX, deixou-nos a herança mental de que os clientes são todos iguais e que o preço é a variável mais importante para eles. Assim, a maioria das PME, imersa nesta visão económica, compete pelo preço e tenta ser tudo para todos, tenta ter o melhor preço e, em simultâneo, tanto oferecer pequenas como grandes séries.
.
Quando os negócios correm mal a tentação é fazer uns descontos e tentar seduzir clientes por essa via. Normalmente essa é uma via que acelera o caminho para a desgraça.
.
Continua.

Acerca da formulação da estratégia (parte II)

A propósito do postal "Acerca da formulação da estratégia", no Facebook perguntaram-me:

"E será que o líder aprecia essa interacção toda?"

Pois, há uma questão prévia: o líder tem skin-in-the-game?
.
Admitamos que sim, admitamos que tem tudo a ganhar com o sucesso da sua empresa. Então, talvez faça sentido ler "Strategy and the Strategist: How it Matters Who Develops the Strategy" de Eric Van den Steen" e reflectir sobre as suas implicações.

"In some sense, the paper thus explains why strategy is the quintessential responsibility of the CEO. Moreover, it shows that the optimal strategy should depend on who is CEO. It then turns that question around and studies strategy as a tool for exerting leadership, asking when the set of strategic decisions are exactly the decisions a CEO should control to give effective guidance. It finally shows how a CEO’s vision, in the sense of a strong belief, about strategic decisions makes it more likely that the CEO will propose a strategy and that that strategy will be implemented. But strong vision about the wrong decisions, such as subordinate or others’ decisions, may be detrimental to strategy and its implementation."

E nas conclusões:

"This paper explored how strategy and the strategist interact in a world with open disagreement.
…
This paper first derived two mechanisms – different from the existing biased-perception explanation – for why a strategist’s background and position would systematically affect her strategy. First, a strategist is more likely to build her strategy around choices about which she is very confident (than around decisions about which she has doubts). Second, a strategy built around decisions that the strategist controls is more credible.
…
Having established that the strategy will be systematically influenced by the person who formulates it, I then studied why it matters that it is the CEO or a central decision maker (rather than some smart analyst) who formulates the strategy. On this issue, the paper showed that an outsider-strategist may be forced into a trade-off between the quality of strategy and the likelihood of implementation and that involvement of the central decision maker in strategy formulation improved strategy implementation, thus establishing an important link between formulation and implementation.
.
Turning this issue (why the CEO should formulate the strategy) around, I also showed that – in order to provide effective leadership – a strategist should optimally control (directly or indirectly) decisions that are both strategic and controversial. This result reflects a broader theme that open disagreement is a key driver of the link between strategy and leadership.
.
I finally turn from structural to personal characteristics and investigate the role of vision (in the sense of strong beliefs about the right course of action) in strategy. I show that vision about strategic decisions can provide a commitment that improves implementation. A strategist with appropriate vision is more likely to propose a strategy and also more likely to get her strategy implemented." 

O truque do mapa da estratégia (parte II)

Parte I.
.
Ontem, escrevíamos aqui:

(Moi ici: Aqui é que entra o truque do mapa da estratégia... qual é o nosso ADN? Onde podemos fazer a diferença? Existe massa crítica de clientes-alvo? Quem são os clientes-alvo? O que procuram e valorizam? Que mosaico de actividades devemos desenvolver para os conquistar, satisfazer e fidelizar? Que recursos e infraestruturas suportaram essas actividades estratégicas? E, assim, tudo fica alinhado!!!)

E em sintonia encontramos "You Can’t Build a Winning Strategy If You Don’t Know Who You Are":
"Every enterprise is regularly confronted with questions of where to grow, how to acquire, and what should make up its business portfolio. The corporate landscape is littered with companies that have lost their way because their answers to those questions became detached from who they are: their way of creating value for customers and shareholders (or “way to play”), and the differentiating capabilities they leverage to play their way better than anyone else. (Moi ici: Recordar este número "56 percent said their company has not allocated resources in a way that really supports the strategy, and 55 percent reported difficulties in ensuring that day-to-day decisions are in line with strategy" e "Only a third (33 percent) said they feel the company’s core capabilities fully support the company’s strategy") These two essential components of every company’s identity must work together and reinforce each other for a company to have a right to win in its particular markets

O truque do mapa da estratégia (parte I)

"Those are some of the key insights from a current Booz & Company survey of more than 3,500 global leaders, including 550 CEOs and 325 other C-suite executives.
.
Among the data points that illuminate business leaders’ frustrations:

• A majority of leaders (64 percent) said the biggest frustration for managers is having too many conflicting priorities. (Moi ici: Será um sintoma de prioridades pouco claras? Ter uma estratégia clara implica escolher o que fazer e o que não fazer... os que não se definem são os 'morons' do meio-termo, stuck-in-the-middle (ver figura abaixo... recordar van den Steen e "the fundamental effect of a strategy: create alignment across decisions, but at the cost of compromising some decisions on a standalone basis")

• Most executives (54 percent) said they do not believe that their company’s strategy will lead to success. (Moi ici: Quer dizer que pactuam com a erosão e apodrecimento da situação competitiva da sua empresa?)

• Most (53 percent) could not say their strategy is understood by employees and customers. (Moi ici: É sempre possível dizer que a culpa é da crise)
• Only a third (33 percent) said they feel the company’s core capabilities fully support the company’s strategy. (Moi ici: Se não há alinhamento entre o ADN, a tradição, as competências de uma empresa e a estratégia... temos o caldo entornado. A empresa vai competir num terreno dominado com vantagem por outros)
• Only 21 percent could say all of their businesses leverage their core capabilities.
• Just 20 percent said they feel their company has a “right to win” in all the markets it competes in.

More than half of the respondents said they were facing significant strategic challenges. 56 percent said their company has not allocated resources in a way that really supports the strategy, and 55 percent reported difficulties in ensuring that day-to-day decisions are in line with strategy." (Moi ici: Aqui é que entra o truque do mapa da estratégia... qual é o nosso ADN? Onde podemos fazer a diferença? Existe massa crítica de clientes-alvo? Quem são os clientes-alvo? O que procuram e valorizam? Que mosaico de actividades devemos desenvolver para os conquistar, satisfazer e fidelizar? Que recursos e infraestruturas suportaram essas actividades estratégicas? E, assim, tudo fica alinhado!!!)

Trechos retirados de "Most Executives Don’t Think Their Company’s Strategy Will Lead to Success, and Most Don’t Think Their Strategy is Understood by Employees and Customers, According to Booz & Company Executive Survey"

Reduzir a taxa de insucesso das startups (parte IV)

Parte III, parte II e parte I.
.
Terminámos a contribuição anterior para esta série com:

"Com pensamento crítico, com uma estratégia pensada, a gestão sabe que a empresa não está condenada a uma abordagem ao mercado. A empresa pode ver-se, pode pensar-se como um lançador de estratégias em busca de respostas positivas. E se uma estratégia não resulta, não é a empresa que fica de imediato condenada, há que reflectir e lançar uma nova hipótese.
.
Será uma explicação razoável, para a elevada mortalidade, a ausência generalizada de estratégia nas startups?"

Entretanto, ao final do dia, Arie Goldshlager, via Twitter, acrescentou mais algumas tópicos. Primeiro esta citação de Schrage em 2010:

"“The cost of experimentation is now the same or less than the cost of analysis. You can get more value for time, more value for dollar, more value for Euro, by doing a quick experiment than from doing a sophisticated analysis. In fact, your quick experiment can make your sophisticated analysis better.”"

Sem estratégia, a existência de uma empresa está indissociada da sua prática. Sem estratégia formalizada e encarada como uma experiência, uma empresa é o que faz, uma empresa é acção, é execução e não experimentação.
.
E volto a Goldshlager mas agora em 2013 com "Why businesses don’t experiment" e citando Dan Ariely:

"“I think this irrational behavior stems from two sources. One is the nature of experiments themselves. As the people at the consumer goods firm pointed out, experiments require short-term losses for long-term gains. Companies (and people) are notoriously bad at making those trade-offs. Second, there’s the false sense of security that heeding experts provides. When we pay consultants, we get an answer from them and not a list of experiments to conduct. We tend to value answers over questions because answers allow us to take action, while questions mean that we need to keep thinking. Never mind that asking good questions and gathering evidence usually guides us to better answers.”"

Em Novembro passado descobri aquele artigo de van den Steen que gerou a série:

• Acerca da estratégia - parte I
• Acerca da estratégia - parte II
• Acerca da estratégia - parte III

Que começou com:

"An organization "lacks a strategy" when the organization takes a number of actions that may each make sense on their own but that do not make sense together."

Será uma explicação razoável, para a elevada mortalidade, a aposta num conjunto de acções que sozinhas fazem todo o sentido e que juntas não? Por falta de um pensamento agregador, de uma estratégia?

Estratégia, um trabalho sempre inacabado

Na passada sexta-feira, eram cerca de 6h15 da manhã quando, a correr, antes de sair para a Guarda, vi este título “Taxistas frequentam curso para acolherem melhor os turistas do Douro”. Então, sem ler o seu conteúdo, guardei-o no meu Pocket.

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Enquanto subia a A25, pensei no artigo e, recordando este postal “Mais uma sugestão de modelo de negócio” pensei que se tratava de uma movimentação da empresa Douro Azul, que veria os taxistas como “partners”.

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Só ontem Domingo é que li o artigo e percebi que a Douro Azul não tem nada a ver com isto. No entanto, já tinha arquitectado um postal sobre o tema, que julgo, não perde a sua razão de ser.
Esta semana, no âmbito de um projecto, vou discutir com uma empresa as primeiras versões dos seus mapas da estratégia. 

Depois de aprovadas as versões revistas desses mapas da estratégia vou passar a seguinte mensagem: 

- Formularam uma estratégia, traduziram essa estratégia num mapa da estratégia. Contudo, a estratégia nunca está terminada. Mesmo que o mundo não mudasse, a estratégia deve ser sempre alvo de aperfeiçoamento e melhorias.

Quando se formula uma estratégia e, mesmo quando ela parece estar a dar resultado, ela nunca fica encerrada, nunca fica fechada.

Quando se formula uma estratégia, define-se um ponto de vista, fazem-se algumas escolhas, auto-impomos-nos um conjunto de constrangimentos (estratégia deliberada). Depois, as circunstâncias que as empresas encontram, levam-nas a chocar contra constrangimentos impostos pelo mundo que obrigam a escolhas durante a viagem para o futuro (estratégia emergente). E, mesmo se não houvesse constrangimentos impostos pelo exterior, descobriríamos que aquilo que vimos ontem, pode ser aprofundado, aperfeiçoado, descobriríamos coisas que antes não tínhamos visto.

.

A partir do mapa da estratégia é possível desenhar um mosaico de actividades:

Um mosaico que agrupa actividades em que a empresa se deve esmerar, para cumprir os objectivos estratégicos da perspectiva interna.

Quando olhamos para os mosaicos de empresas como a IKEA:

(Imagem retirada do artigo “What is strategy?” de Michael Porter.)

Ficamos fascinados pela interligação e interacção entre as diversas actividades. Contudo, embora não pareça, estes mosaicos não nasceram assim. São o resultado de uma evolução, de um esforço contínuo de melhoria, de aperfeiçoamento. Neste postal “A amaricação”, relato como muitos daqueles tópicos do mosaico da Ikea não nasceram de um planeamento prévio mas são fruto das respostas que a empresa teve de criar à medida que iam surgindo constrangimentos. (BTW, é fascinante como os constrangimentos aguçam a criatividade se encarados com uma mente positiva).

.

Depois de reler o que acabei de escrever veio ao meu palco mental um dos primeiros artigos sobre estratégia que arquivei nesse dossiê... "Crafting strategy" de Mintzberg e publicado na HBR de Julho-Agosto de 1987:

"In my metaphor, managers are craftsmen and strategy is their clay. Like the potter, they sit between a past of corporate capabilities and a future of market opportunities. And if they are truly craftsmen, they bring to their work an equally intimate knowledge of the materials at hand. That is the essence of crafting strategy.
...
One idea leads to another, until a new pattern forms. Action has driven thinking: a new strategy emerged.
...
My point is simple, deceptively simple: startegies can form as well as be formulated.
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To manage strategy is to craft thought and action, control and learning, stability and change.
....
Craftsmen have to train themselves to see, to pick up things other people miss. 'The same holds true for managers of strategy It is those with a kind of peripheral vision who are best able to detect and take advantage of events as they unfold."

Acho super interessante como metáfora pensar na evolução de uma estratégia da mesma forma que um oleiro molda o barro nas suas mãos... ele parte de uma ideia deliberada, depois, com o trabalhar do barro, com o jogo entre as mãos e o material, enquanto a roda gira, vão surgindo ideias para concretizar ainda mais a intenção inicial.

"No craftsman thinks some days and works others. The craftsman's mind is going constantly in tandem with her hands. Yet large organizations try to separate the work of minds and hands. In so doing, they often sever the vital feedback link between the two.
...
In practice, of course, all strategy making walks on two feet, one deliberate, the other emergent. For just as purely deliberate strategy making precludes learning, so purely emergent strategy making precludes control. Pushed to the limit, neither approach makes much sense. Learning must be coupled with control. ...
Likewise, there is no such thing as a purely deliberate strategy or a purely emergent one. No organization—not even the ones commanded by those ancient Greek generals— knows enough to work everything out in advance, to ignore learning en route. And no one - not even a solitary potter - can be flexible enough to leave everything to happenstance, to give up all control. Craft requires control just as it requires responsiveness to the material at hand. Thus deliberate and emergent strategy form the end points of a continuum along which the strategies that are crafted in the real world may be found." 

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Assim, o meu convite para a empresa é para continuar a refinar a estratégia. Quanto mais interacções conseguirmos ir criando, mais forte fica a estratégia e a empresa. Recordar as palavras de Eric van den Steen em parte I, parte II e parte III.

ADENDA: E é como Roger Martin escreveu recentemente "Strategy Is All About Practice", à medida que se vai moldando o barro, a sua temperatura aumenta e a sua viscoelasticidade melhora, a sua trabalhabilidade melhora.

Acerca da estratégia - parte III

"Strategy works because people want to align their decisions with others when uncertainty is large.
...
An uninformed strategy promotes an internal alignment at the cost of a considerable loss of external alignment
…
Without any strategy, the organization does relatively well on external alignment, but no better than random on internal alignment. With the optimal strategy bet, things switch to the other extreme: the organization does well on internal alignment, but no better than random or external alignment.
…
Uncertainty drives the need for strategy: (Moi ici: E o que é que tem crescido os últimos tempos?) absent uncertainty, everyone knows the optimal decisions so that there seems to be no role for strategy.
…
Uncertainty makes it hard to choose the right decision, but because uncertainty makes it hard to anticipate others and thus to align with their actions.
…
Uncertainty makes strategy valuable, but only when combined with a high level of interaction, which shows that the relevant effect of initial/public uncertainty is not to make it hard to find the correct decision but to make it hard to predict what others will do and thus to coordinate with them
…
The role of strategy is then to create common knowledge of the optimal action, which then becomes a focal point for more responsive coordination.
…
Strategy can help to create change by creating common knowledge of an alternative optimum."

Trechos retirados de "A Theory of Explicitly Formulated Strategy" de Eric Van den Steen.

Acerca da estratégia - parte II

"even a strategy “bet” - when the strategist chooses a direction despite not knowing the optimal decisions – can create value by generating a focal point, which improves alignment, though on a potential suboptimal course of action. (Moi ici: Um ponto a merecer reflexão... o poder do alinhamento interno. Como diria Weick, "any map will do")
…
The value of a strategy increases when there is more initial or public uncertainty, with uncertainty being a complement to the degree of interaction. (Moi ici: E como são os tempos que vivemos? Vivemos em tempos de mais ou menos incerteza?)
…
Uncertainty makes it difficult to predict what others will do and thus to align with their actions.
…
Choices and decisions (that make up the strategy) “guide” (towards an objective) is obviously implicit in the idea of “strategy as plan”.
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The value of developing a strategy is higher when there are stronger interactions among the decisions, when eventual confidence about the interactions is higher, and when decisions are more difficult to reverse.
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Absent interactions there is no gain from aligning decisions and thus no gain from an overall “strategy” to guide decisions. A business that is all about getting a few decisions correct, with no interactions, gains little from strategy. This ties back to the idea that the key role of strategy is to generate consistency across decisions, both over time and across functions, and confirms the central role of interactions in strategy as suggested by the management literature.
…
Strategy – its key role is always to generate a pattern. Strategy only matters when there should be a pattern in the decisions and strategy makes sure that that pattern is realized.
…
The value of strategy increases when there is a proportional increase in the importance of all interactions, the value of strategy does not increase with the importance of one individual decision by itself."

Trechos retirados de "A Theory of Explicitly Formulated Strategy" de Eric Van den Steen.

Acerca da estratégia - parte I

Um artigo a ler com calma e atenção "A Theory of Explicitly Formulated Strategy" de Eric Van den Steen:

"An organization "lacks a strategy" when the organization takes a number of actions that may each make sense on their own but that do not make sense together
...
Strategy, like a plan, ensures that all actions fit together
...
Strategy is a plan. As a plan, the purpose of strategy is to guide future choices, actions, and decisions towards some objective.
...
But not a detailed plan of action or a comprehensive set of choices and decisions; it is a plan of action boiled down to its most essential choices and decisions.
...
Strategy as the "smallest set of - intended or actual - choices and decisions sufficient to guide all other choices and decisions sufficient to guide all other choices and decisions.
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Strategy provides each decision maker with just enough of the full picture to ensure consistency.
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Strategy generates endogenously a hierarchy of decisions, with more strategic decisions guiding subordinate decisions.
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Important decisions are more strategic not just because they affect performance more but because they will be decided on their own terms so that other decisions will need to adjust to them and will thus be guided by them.
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more central decisions - in a network sense - are more strategic because they affect, and guide more other decisions through interactions.
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interaction is necessary for strategy to have value and irreversibility increases its value, with interaction and irreversibility being complements...
irreversibility per se does not make the decision strategic
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the fundamental effect of a strategy: create alignment across decisions, but at the cost of compromising some decisions on a standalone basis."

Leio isto e penso que é esta falta de interacção e de irreversibilidade que torna frágeis estas abordagens low-cost "Petrolífera de Sousa Cintra quer passar a rede low-cost" e "Ginásios low-cost".
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Recordar o caso da IKEA:

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Continua.