This article describes the application of pattern thinking to strategy. Patterns provide a powerful discipline to see order beneath the surface chaos. Pattern thinking can help entrepreneurs, managers, investors, and key talent to anticipate the likely direction of changes even before they...

Strategic planning in many companies has become an impotent process, largely devoid of imagination. These companies must revamp their thinking if they are to create truly innovative strategy embodied with the power to win. The author postulates four fundamental business laws that form the...

This case is a cautionary tale. Though “RosyOpticals.com” was one of analysts’ favorite start‐ups in the Internet boom, this San Francisco company’s prodigious plans to get big in a hurry caused it to ignore some basic tenets of strategic management. It is not that giving their...

In a session of the Strategos Innovation Academy, participants considered how a number of core management processes – for example, strategic planning, capital budgeting, performance assessment and product and process development – inhibit innovation. Working in groups, the participants...

Leaders at all levels of the company need to institute a simple but effective routine for collecting the information needed to take strategic action. This article explains how to make that process pervasive and suggests some specific tools to help it work effectively in your organization. There...

Some classes of scenario planning tools and techniques are designed to inform near‐term strategic decisions. In addition, some of these are more appropriate for lower levels of uncertainty, while others are best suited for highly uncertain, truly ambiguous business environments. This paper...

The annual Bain 2003 global survey of companies finds that managers are using more tools than ever to make headway in tough times. On average, the companies surveyed used 16 tools in 2002 with the heaviest reliance on tried and true “compass‐setting” tolls such as strategic planning,...

This article shows how scenarios provide a powerful methodology to identify, connect, and assess the critical strategic and knowledge uncertainties they inevitably contain within them, the seeds of any organization’s future marketplace opportunities. Although these two types of uncertainties...

As the global economy starts to perk up, interest in mergers and acquisitions is once again building. Now is the time to confront the paradox at the heart of M&A. Although study after study has shown that most deals destroy value for the acquirer’s shareholders, why do companies proceed with...

“Chemcor”, a mid‐sized specialty chemicals firm must balance the disciplining effects of planning against the need for innovative and adaptive action. The top corporate strategy officer at Chemcor resolved to help three company divisions work towards finding a way. To complement the...