Fallacies of Strategic Planning
(iii). Mintzberg (1994), uses chapter five as a review of the fallacies of strategic planning. In his "grand fallacy, "the failures of planning are not coincidental but central to the very nature of planning.
These fallacies underlying strategic planning are:
The Fallacy of Prediction:
The act of planning assumes predetermination. It projects in advance the future environment; the unfolding of the strategy formation process on schedule, and the ability to impose the resulting strategies on an accepting environment. (Murray, et al. 2005).
No company is accurately able to predict the future in other to develop a plan around it, and then stay on the predetermined course while that plan is being executed. In assuming the ability of planning to predetermine the future, the planner and the leader create the conditions by which plans fail to meet expectations. A basic precept of planning rests on forecasting, but the performance of forecasting has been less than ideal. Forecasting fails to accurately predict discontinuities because it relies on estimates.
Fallacy of Detachment: The assumption that "thought must be detached from action, strategy from operations perceived thinkers from real doers, and, therefore, 'strategists' from the objects of their strategies."
The notion of quantification; in which the strategy making process is driven by 'hard data,' comprising quantitative aggregates of the detailed 'facts' about the organization and its environment.
There have been literatures on the need for strategy development, and planning to be done away from routine and distinct from daily decisions. Unfortunately, this concept challenges both the leader's ability to allocate time purely to planning and the leader's ability to be abstract while immersed in the daily world.
The reliance on hard, objective data drives out qualitative data which has a greater chance of re-shaping the organization and sensing subtle environmental changes. In the long run, Mintzberg
These fallacies underlying strategic planning are:
The Fallacy of Prediction:
The act of planning assumes predetermination. It projects in advance the future environment; the unfolding of the strategy formation process on schedule, and the ability to impose the resulting strategies on an accepting environment. (Murray, et al. 2005).
No company is accurately able to predict the future in other to develop a plan around it, and then stay on the predetermined course while that plan is being executed. In assuming the ability of planning to predetermine the future, the planner and the leader create the conditions by which plans fail to meet expectations. A basic precept of planning rests on forecasting, but the performance of forecasting has been less than ideal. Forecasting fails to accurately predict discontinuities because it relies on estimates.
Fallacy of Detachment: The assumption that "thought must be detached from action, strategy from operations perceived thinkers from real doers, and, therefore, 'strategists' from the objects of their strategies."
The notion of quantification; in which the strategy making process is driven by 'hard data,' comprising quantitative aggregates of the detailed 'facts' about the organization and its environment.
There have been literatures on the need for strategy development, and planning to be done away from routine and distinct from daily decisions. Unfortunately, this concept challenges both the leader's ability to allocate time purely to planning and the leader's ability to be abstract while immersed in the daily world.
The reliance on hard, objective data drives out qualitative data which has a greater chance of re-shaping the organization and sensing subtle environmental changes. In the long run, Mintzberg