ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we outlined the dominant perspective in the strategy literature – strategy as a deliberate, rational planning process. We identified the main components of the planning process and acknowledged its tangible and softer benefits. Despite its ubiquity however we should not assume that planning is the only, or even the best, way of doing strategy. Henry Mintzberg (1994), a prominent critic of strategic planning, suggests that not only is planning not the best way to do strategy but that it rests on a number of underlying assumptions that do not stand up to closer scrutiny. Moreover, he argues that the theory and rhetoric of planning does not accord with the lived experience of organizational life.
