ABSTRACT

A second way to bring together the insights in this book is to examine paradoxes in more detail. After all, it is difficult to deny that there are considerable differences of opinion between the schools we have looked at. It isn’t sufficient for me simply to say – as I did in the previous chapter – that most of the schools focus on different aspects. Obviously, there is an almost unbridgeable gulf between the approaches that regard processes as unnecessary and those that regard them as indispensable. In fact, this book is a continuous dialogue between the two faces of a Janus figure.1 Here is a summary of a few passages from this dialogue:

• We seek hard facts, but we know that every hard fact is a construct. • We want to take conscious strategic decisions, but we know that many

important ‘decisions’ come about spontaneously (emergent strategy). • We are committed to strategic resolve but we know that, in many cases, the

‘top’ does not have all the relevant information. • The literature on strategy provides a range of analytical tools, but how do we

arrive at strategic synthesis? What role does intuition play in this? • Greater strategic participation can help to map out our ambiguous reality

more clearly, but how do we know whether the information we receive from others is the most reliable information they have? How can we avoid being taken for a ride? Moreover, don’t managers sometimes like to be taken for a ride, so that they can claim they knew nothing if things start to go wrong? Or perhaps, in our organization, someone is working on an innovation that is not in line with our strategic plan but could eventually be very profitable.