Critical Review of Strategic Thinking Paradigms - Assignment Example

Critical Review of Strategic Thinking Paradigms Strategic management has been the concern of the modern day managers. They are quite interested to know about strategic planning and thinking paradigms. This report is discussing the literature work of Kaufman, Greiner and Cummings who are intellectual authors in strategic planning and management. The objective in this is to cover multiple views of the authors, to identify important areas in strategic planning and management. Critical Review of Strategic Thinking Paradigms Introduction Strategic management, which has come out as a majorly adapted practice in organizations, has become a concern to managers. Managers in contemporary organizations want to know about strategic management and its competitive practices. Basically SM is a profound concept that involves organizational planning and competitive integration of a system. It is a peculiar concept that requires detailed and comprehensive understanding. This paper is bringing insight on two of the most important texts in strategic management. It may include the review of the Kaufman, Greiner and Cummings works regarding strategic management themes and perspectives. The paper presents the contrasting and differentiating views of the literature, in order to find novel practices of strategic management. The Review In the 21st century world, a precise change has been experienced by organizations. This change involves vulnerability, risk and competitiveness due to the large number of market players present. Technology has a crucial role in settling this impulsive change, which has made the environment of business competitive and risk-oriented. In this vulnerable environment, a new type of strategic planning is needed as proposed by Greiner and Cummings in their text. The authors deliberately propose novel strategic planning, which is different from the so-called conventional strategic frameworks. This new strategic framework is a proactive one, definitely not the idle one as the old ones used to be but highly receptive and responsive to the changing business environment. It is a dynamic strategic planning system, which authors propose as an alternative to the conventional strategic system. As organizations are dynamic today so the need is to incorporate this dynamic strategic system (Greiner & Cummings, 2009). Kaufman in contrast to Cummings and Greiner proposes a pragmatic strategic model. This model collaborates the new and the old conventional frameworks of strategic planning. The author thinks that old models are useful, as they set the baseline to form the new models of strategic planning. The need is to join the old techniques with the vital new ones, in order to find the most valuable strategic techniques, valuable in terms of implying in the competitive business environment. Kaufman differs from Greiner in a way as it merges the old techniques to the new ones. He thinks that conventional techniques should not be thrown away, as they could be brought to purposive and decisive use of today (Kaufman, 2003). Kaufman in his text talks about a strategic system based on strategic paradigms and strategic thinking. Kaufman asserts that a strategic system gets formed on the basis of strategic individuals, strategic culture and strategic policies. It is actually a strategic mindset that is behind the formation of the strategic system, according to Kaufman. Greiner and Cummings assert slightly in a different way. They think that strategic system is a consequence of strategic leaderships vision. Definitely, it is the consequence of the visionaries thought but Greiner and Cummings bring a more focus on the role of leaders to forming a strategic system. The leaders role is crucial in giving birth to a strategic system, as asserted and described by the authors. Powerful leadership is the prime element in establishing a strategic system. The contemporary empirical evidences claim that organizations that have the most vibrant strategic systems imply a strong and competitive leadership. It is because of their strategic thinkers, their strategic individuals such organizations are able to evolve such powerful strategic systems. Kaufman emphasize on the systematic idea of forming a strategic system. He says that it is with the collaboration of individuals, not just the top leaders, but also the whole organization, a successful strategic system comes into place. This is a slight difference found in the Kaufman and the Greiners thought (Greiner & Cummings, 2009). Kaufman emphasizes on aligning people with resources to form a valuable system of strategic management. For executing strategy, this well coordinated system is required. Training of individuals is important in this manner. It is actually the culture, the policy for implementing a strategy, which individuals are to be aware of and have to be trained for. Greiner and Cummings points out the leadership role for forming this well engaged and coordinated system of individuals. They believe that leadership is the one, which could develop this strategic mindset in individuals. To implement a strategic plan, it is leadership that injects the premises, the resources and the valuable culture for implementation. In this way, Kaufman, Greiner and Cummings advocate the culture of strategic planning that is decisively driven and established by a strong leadership. Greiner and Cummings bring different cases of companies in which leaders formed the culture of strategic planning. The authors identify the example of collaborative leader David Nadler who drives strategic planning in Marsh and McLennan Companies through bringing strategy culture. It is the visionary leadership of Nadler and competitive strategy culture, which makes Nadler’s organization a competitive one. Kaufman agrees with Greiner and Cummings that strategy comes from the top, comes from the think tank that is decisively working on the strategy culture (Greiner & Cummings, 2009). Greiner and Cummings push towards the real time approach in strategic planning. They think that to raise the impact of a strategy, the knowledge of the present time is important. Kaufman slightly opposes in this manner as he says that strategy should be ever lasting, like it has to be planned for the long-term basis. Greiner and Cummings critically describes that strategy is a dynamic roadmap and it has to be incepted or formulated with respect to the present scenario. Kaufman emphasize on the future assessment of a strategy, like what it could yield in the future or what positive things it could bring for the organization in the tomorrow. This is a slight difference of opinion, which we find in authors’ texts. However, both Greiner and Cummings and so as Kaufman agree on transparency and accountability. They agree that accountability is something that corrects the path of strategic planning and thinking. Accountability is one complete paradigm that purifies the strategic process. This may include the purification of strategy formation and purification of strategy execution. Without accountability no system could flourish, as what authors think and assert in their opinion (Kaufman, 2003). Learning from experience is also important in strategic planning and execution. If organization does not learn from its past, from its previous omissions, it could never subject to effective strategic thinking. According to Kaufman, knowledge of the past is decisively very important to forming a future-driven strategy. Greiner and Cummings agree on the same point as they think that a true strategic leader always learn from the mistakes. It is actually the nature of a strategic leader that he never forgets the past mistakes, as this is what gives him the effective drive towards future. Strategic organizations agree on this point too, that they do not simply to jump to the future but they think, wait and plan, according to Greiner and Cummings (Kaufman, 2003). Conclusion This paper has presented the strategic paradigms proposed by intellectual authors Greiner, Cummings on Kaufman. The comprehension of the literature tells that strategic management is a very wide and macroscopic concept. It is a concept that opens up to multiple distinctive dimensions. With critical assessment, it is learned that strategic planning is a dynamic concept. It is a concept that implies on the real time basis and with the recent pattern and situation. Authors have presented valuable literature on how modern organizations can shape an efficient and productive strategic management system. They have presented deep insights on strategic planning and thinking, which could favor and assist the modern organizational managers. References Greiner, L. E., & Cummings, T. G. (2009). Dynamic Stratey-Making: A Real-Time Approach for the 21st Century Leader. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Kaufman, R. (2003). Strategic Planning for Success: Aligning People, Performance and Payoffs. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More