ABSTRACT
How do we actually learn to think strategically? “It’s not so simple as step by step. It [strategy] is not a formula or a simple pattern. It is a complex, constantly developing process; it is not an ordered process. Making strategy is not a straight line — I don’t sit at my desk and just build it like a model,” claimed the CEO of a leading privately owned Polish manufacturing company when asked to describe his thinking when he makes strategy. A Japanese financial executive declared, “I don’t even like the word strategy. It seems to mean that it is a model or . . . fixed steps to follow. To be frank, I think all the models and theories, they are only complicated planning ideas. Strategy is not so orderly.”
