Emergent Strategy

• Intended strategy – Senior management undertake a process of formal strategic planning to determine the future direction of an organization and a course of action to get there.
• Deliberate strategy – Intended strategies that are implemented exactly as predicted: they are fully realized. Few strategies are realized exactly as intended, as this requires a perfect forecast and plans that need no alteration throughout implementation. This is unrealistic in an unknowable future.
• Realized strategy – The actual strategy that unfolds within the organization. This can be the outcome of a deliberate strategy; an intended strategy that has been altered (e.g. because of environmental changes or stakeholders objections); or the result of emergent strategy.
• Unrealised strategy – Intended strategies that fail to be implemented. Unrealised strategies can result for a number of reasons, including inadequate planning processes, implementation failure, or a change in the environment making the strategy redundant.
• Emergent strategy – Realized strategies that were not expressly planned or intended. We outline this concept in more detail below.

Emergent Strategy

Mintzberg observed that many of the strategies that emerge within organizations do not undergo a formal planning process. He proposed that some strategies result when numerous small actions taken individually throughout the organization, over time, move in the same direction and converge into a pattern of change. [1] This, he termed as emergent strategy.

Strategies can form as well as be formulated. [2]

Mintzberg’s theory states that strategies can come from anyone anywhere within the organization at any time. They do not have to be centrally controlled or formally planned, but can come about in response to changing situations, new ideas, improved practices, etc. Emergent strategies have a number of advantages for organizations:

• The freedom to adapt to changing environments and respond rapidly to new conditions.
• The ability to experiment with new ideas without being locked into a course of action.
• Change that is more readily accepted, as the ideas come from those within the organization.
• An environment of learning and innovation within the organization.

However, some of the advantages associated with planning deliberate strategies can be lost:

• The ability to predict long-term outcomes of change.
• The control by senior management.
• A sense of direction for the organization.
• The ability to plan activities and thus prevent overlapping of tasks, and conflicting and contradictory behavior by employees. [3]

Creating the Environment For Emergent Strategy

Emergent strategy can develop within any organization, but tends to evolve more successfully under certain conditions. De Wit and Meyer outline five features that can support the development of emergent strategies: [4]

1. Organizational structure. Organizational structures provide the foundation for systems of power and control, and the relationships between individuals and groups – which can play a huge role in either promoting or inhibiting change. Emergent strategies thrive in less hierarchical, flatter structures that allow for greater delegation, innovation and decision making at the lower levels.

2. Organizational culture. Successful change is largely reliant upon appropriate and supportive cultures. For emergent strategies to be successful, an organization must foster a culture of learning, experimentation and decision making at all levels.

3. Organizational learning. Emergent strategy requires everyone in the organization to seek new opportunities and constantly strive to improve processes. Information about the organization, marketplace, customers, competitors, etc. that is available to all employees will enable them to diagnose problems and develop effective solutions.

4. Managerial behavior. Emergent strategies develop more successfully where managers coach and support empowered teams and encourage experimentation, instead of imposing top-down control. Senior managers are required to take a more generalized view of the future and plan incremental steps for achieving this. They will focus on building a strong core business to allow scope for the required experimentation.

5. Power and politics. Managers need to be alert to patterns of change that begin to emerge within the organization and work at gaining support for these from senior management, employees and other stakeholders. This involves the use of symbols and language to encourage and demonstrate support for the change. For example, words, gestures, pictures, and objects, such as logos, speeches and titles.

Strategy Continuum

Furthering his theory on emergent strategy, Mintzberg describes how few strategies are either purely deliberate or emergent. Neither a deliberate nor an emergent strategy is realistic in practice, nor do they provide healthy conditions for change: a purely deliberate strategy requires no flexibility, learning or change, and a purely emergent strategy foregoes any management control.

As a result, Mintzberg asserts that: ‘... deliberate and emergent strategy form the end points of a continuum along which the strategies that are crafted in the real world may be found’.

Organizations craft strategies by balancing the conflicting demands of trying to remain adaptable whilst planning for the future. Where strategies appear on the continuum will depend on the conditions best suited to the organization. According to Mintzberg, organizations that combine control and flexibility produce some of the most successful strategies. Two types of strategy effectively achieve this:

1. Umbrella strategies. Senior management sets out broad guidelines for strategy and leaves the specifics to others lower down the organization. This is deliberate in its guidance and emergent in its specifics.

2. Process strategies. Senior management control the processes of strategy formulation, so concentrate on designing organizational structure, staffing, procedures, etc. and leave the content of the strategy to others in the organization. According to Mintzberg, the key to managing strategy is finding a balance between the control and direction of deliberate strategy, and the responsiveness and flexibility of emergent strategy.