Deliberate and Emergent Strategies - Essay Example

Deliberate and Emergent Strategies Mintzberg’s view of strategy is the most relevant today. In the contemporary age, business has not remained as predictable as it used to be in the past. The technology is advancing at a very fast pace and human strategic planning has often failed to keep pace with the speed at which new technology is being introduced and utilized. The difference between deliberate strategies and emergent strategies is primarily of duration; while deliberate strategies are formed by assuming, analyzing, and foreseeing the national and international factors that affect the business, emergent strategies are formed with the inherent belief that things will change in an unexpected manner and therefore, any strategy formed is destined to fail.

Comparing the two, emergent strategy is more realistic and conservative compared to the deliberate strategy, which is more optimistic and long-sighted. The fact that emergent strategy provides a relatively pessimistic view of realization of the plans does not mean that planning is inherently purposeless. Instead, emergent strategy encourages the parties involved in strategic planning to prioritize their efforts and focus upon achievement of the short-term goals rather than the long-term goals as the future is uncertain.

Emergent strategies might help with a future planning process by identifying milestones in the near future, and working out ways to achieve them. The potential consequences of ignoring emergent strategies would be misuse and wastage of time, efforts, and resources. The strategic plans that took so much time and effort making might never realize and even worse, the short-term plans or intermediate milestones would not be achieved.