ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a research project on patterns in strategy formation that has been going on at McGill University under the author direction since 1971. Strategy's formal definition and its Greek military origins notwithstanding, we need the word as much to explain past actions as to describe intended behavior. The traditional view of strategic management resolves these problems quite simple, by what organizational theorists call attribution. Virtually everything that has been written about strategy making depicts it as a deliberate process. The quantum theory of change seems to apply particularly well to large, established, mass-production companies. The formal planning process repeats itself so often and so mechanically that it desensitizes the organization to real change, programs it more and more deeply into set patterns, and thereby encourages it to make only minor adaptations. The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting the subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future.
