Strategy bites back - Henry Mintzberg

A very short book giving various perspectives on strategy and planning. It is rather hilarious at some parts as i could certainly relate to the issues that I encounter in the workplace.

There are some takeaways from the book about strategy, even as it pokes fun at the subject. Here are the gems:

• Strategy cannot only be the function of a strat planning team, which simply takes information from the ground units and then churn out grand plans which must be followed. It has to be distributed across the organisation.
• Often times. strategy and prediction are "wrong" when applied to reality. However, the true value of strategy in these situations is that it galvanises the imagination and commitment of the people to get them to do something, anything at all. The reassurance of a plan enables people to act.
• However, of course, badly founded statistics, forecasts and plans can also lead people to take disastrous actions.
  
• The current structure of organisations places reason above experience, and hence we often have young officers with little experience leading people with experience on the ground. i.e. separation of strategy from tactics is the norm.
• Many times, strategic planning becomes obsessed with the processes and frameworks, and does not generate new insights at all. (I'm very familiar with this!)
• Even experts cannot agree whether strategy is a top down or bottom up thing. However, some companies have managed to embrace both and make it work ... so maybe that's the soluti0n!
• Culture and strategy may be more similar than one thinks. I'm still trying to digest this point ... so till I manage to, it will remain as a short and abrupt sentence :)