The Design School by P.Selznick - Assignment Example

Topic: The traditional strategic planning model is inaccurately simplistic" (Dent, 1999). Critically evaluate this ment. STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT SCHOOLS a) The design school was founded by P Selznick. The teachers, especially of Harvard University, and the leadership aficionados intended their message to fit and the message they got thru was to think strategically. They belonged to the Prescriptive school where they espoused the theory of look before you leap. They did not analyze nor were intuitive, Their failure was due to their being too static for this era of our rapidly changing environment. b) The second school was the planning school. It was founded by I Ansoff, Their discipline had some links to urban planning, system theory & cybernetics. This school was administered and spread by professional managers, people with MBA’s staff experts (especially in finance and management) consultants & government controllers. Their intended message was to formalize. The message received by their intended listeners was to make a program and administer one. They belonged to the Prescriptive school category. Their theory states that a stitch in time saves time. Their failure was caused by their not supporting real time strategy making nor encourages creative accidents. c) Positioning school – This was founded by Sun Tzu in his literary work The Art of War. This school concentrated on economics or the industrial organization and the military history. This school was championed by consulting boutiques type of business and United States writers. They espouse the theory of analyzing things. The message that was received by their listeners was that they should calculate their every move and not concentrate on creating or committing. This theory belonged also to the Prescriptive management school of thought. Their theory was to consider only the facts of in management decision making. Their shortfall was due to their strategy being reduced to generic positions that were selected thru formalized analysis of industry. d) The Entrepreneurial school was established by J A Schump and A H Cole with collaboration from other economics faculty. Their writings were based on economics. Their intended message was to envision the future but the listeners interpreted their teachings as to centralize and hope for the best. They belonged to the second type of school called the descriptive. Their theory was to take themselves to the leader. Their failure was due to the unclear vision and they depended too much on the leader to for decision making purpose. e) The Cognitive school was established by H A Simon and J March. Their base discipline was Psychology (cognitive). This school was preached by pessimists who are psychologically bent. Their intended message was to cope with any situation or create a solution. The message that got thru to the listeners was that worry was evident in all their actions. This school was described as Descriptive. Its saying goes I will see if when I believe it. Their failure was due to the too subjective approach to strategy formulation. f) The learning school was established by LIndbio, Cyert, March, Weick, Quinn, Prahlad & Hamel. There seems to be no base discipline in this school. Chaos theory in mathematics had started here. The movers of this school were people who loved to experiment, ambiguous and adaptable to many situations like in Japan and Scandinavia They are espousing that the prefer learning but the message that reaches the listeners seems to be the movers just want a play atmosphere to abound. Their school falls under Descriptive type. Their very famous line goes if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. Their failure seems to be that their strategic management process seems to be chaotic or in trouble. Their teachings seem chaotic.g) The power school was established by Alison, Pfeffer, Salancik & Astley. Their base discipline is political science. They are moved by people who love power, politics and conspiracy. Their intended message is promote but the message reaching across is hard. They belong to the Descriptive school. Their saying goes look out for number 1. Their shortfall is due to their focus on clash of self interests of the stakeholders. h) The Culture school concentrated on Anthropology as the base doctrine. The were championed by socially and spiritual people. Their intend message is coalesce but the message reaching the listener is to perpetuate and not change. They belong to the descriptive school. Their team song goes an apple never falls from the tree. Their utter downfall comes from being t suited to change. i) The Environment school was founded by Hannan, Freeman & the Contingency theorists. Their base discipline is biology. They are championed by ecologists, organization theorists, and splitters and positivists. Their intended message is REACT. But the message reaching the listener is capitulate the situation, Their homily is it all depends Their downfall comes from severe limitations to strategic choices. j) The configuration school as told by Chandle, McGll and others. Their intended message is integrate & transfer in. The message that gets across to the listeners is integrate, transfer. The message that gets thru is lump together the situations. This descriptive school that had its homily of the everything there is a season. Their downside is that they are divided between two approaches favoring one or the other side. The above major schools show us that their strategy in dealing with the same business situation is different and far better than the strategy that is promoted by the other schools. Elephant Story From the same reference book in Part I above, the book entitled the ten strategic schools of managements gives the story of the three blind men each holding different parts of an elephant. One described the elephant as how he felt the tusk part of it. He described the tusk as a big snake. How do you think the second blind man will describe the elephant as caresses the tail part of it?. And the third blind man described the elephant as the body part of the elephant. He described the elephant as a great wall. The three blind men are likened to the ten schools in part I of this essay. Each school is like one blind man describing a part of the strategic process as if each has grasp the entire picture of the business situation at hand. “say Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel.3 "Everyone has seized some part or other of the animal and ignored the rest. Consultants have generally gone for the tusks, while academics have preferred to take photo safaris, reducing the animal to a static two dimensions. As a consequence, managers have been encouraged to embrace one narrow perspective or another, like the glories of planning or the wonders of core competences. Unfortunately, the process will only work for them when they deal with the entire beast, as a living organism". CHAOS AND COMPLEXITY There is a scientific method where, in order to know how the toy car moves or makes a sound, an inquisitive child would break down the car and open it up. He then determines the function of one part and how it helps the different functions of the other parts of the car so that when they are bolted together, the car can make a sound and can run by itself thru the help of a batter or remote control. We can know how a clock works by opening up the clock and examining the functions and the uses of each clock part as they help one another make the clock go round and round. We can also dissect a rat or a cat or a horse to learn how the different animal body parts function to help the animal continue living, breathing and eating for many years. The purpose of studying the parts and the whole of the animals is because we want to relate it to our human body parts and how our many harmonious parts cooperate with each other to make us live breathe and survive everyday. This tells us that there is no chaos when the many complex animal body parts are combined together. There is harmony and chaos cannot be found when the many complex human beings come together to form a county, a region, a suburb, a nation, or one world we call earth. We can stand back and watch in awe as the many small units come together to form big group without chaos in the picture. We can watch a flock of birds fly together as if they are being pulled into line by one leader bird. When we see a school of fishes, we will wonder how they look so beautifully organized as they pass thru the ocean current. But we can only excitedly praise its harmony as one part splendidly fits into the entire complex bird or fish organization. But in reality we do not have an inkling of a clue as to how each bird or fish communicates in an agreeable manner to make the complex animal group look so simple and peaceful where chaos is not found. Simple rules can generate complex behaviour that just seems to emerge out of nowhere. € The article what is business strategy and how do we know if we have one? Published in the Business Strategy Review by Costas Markides Vol 15 Issue 2, Summer 2004 states that most of us have the strategy instinct even before we were taught in school of the meaning the procedures of business strategy. According to the book SOCIAL DARWINISM: SCIENCE AND MYTH IN ANGLO-AMERICAN SOCIAL THOUGHT: By Robert C. Bannister. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1979, In social dynamism, Charles Darwin states that the theory of evolution of survival of the fittest can be applied to human social life. According to the English philosopher H. Spencer, society is like a jungle where the strongest and best adapted survive. Darwin says that humans are gradually evolving to a wholly just and peaceful society. but Darwin said that the evolutionary process must proceed at its own slow pace. He said that human attempts to improve social conditions to prevent survival of the fittest attitude would be useless. In the complexity of things chaos crops up in some situations. Just as Darwin famously said that the number 1 rule of life is survival of the fittest. Therefore one must overtake or push aside other human beings or animals to survive. For, in the animal world, the lion will run after a heard of deer. The strongest deer will run faster and therefore survive leaving his slower and weaker deer behind to be eaten by the lion. Chaos has been placed under the study of postmodern science. Chaos theory has proven to be highly remarkable science products. Chaos theory has very far and reach many new places. Chaos theory is recapitulating our view of the world we live in. This theory helps us study the developments of organization cultural studies in another way. Chaos theory lets us study uncertainty, unpredictability, and ambiguity that help to reshape how we look at the world around us. The article Complexity and Life by Emerence,Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.2002, In 1944, Austrian physicists E Schrodinger stated that the gene study is a new frontier of science, molecular biology. The studied and proved that the DNA holds the major characteristics of a person. He has been trying do decode what we call as the DNA code. COMMENT: This shows that it is the person himself or herself has the power to improve his or her personality and to improve their health and community development. We can look at life and determine what we could do to make this place a nicer place to stay in. People look at life as a complex or chaotic situation whether we do not know what will happen next. For Life is too complex is how we look at it. Therefore, we study the chaos of life and convert it into simple acts to be performed. COMPLEXITY SCIENCE Abstract of the books: Dent, Eric B. (1995). Management: Perspectives, Process, and Productivity. College Park, MD: University of Maryland Press and Dent, Eric B. (1993). Organization Development. College Park, MD: University of Maryland Press. States that the science of complexity science is now on a worldwide shift. Complexity science is discussed as “an approach to research, study, and perspective which makes the philosophical assumptions of the emerging worldview (EWV) (these include holism, perspectival observation, and others). This paper differentiates two worldviews, the emerging and the traditional, and suggests a change in mental models which most need revising to enhance the possibility of organizational success. Perhaps the best way to view the assumptions which underlie complexity science is as a polarity with seeming opposites (for example, authoritarian and participative management) each playing an important role. The traditional worldview assumptions overuse one pole, resulting in a needed shift to emerging worldview assumptions. Typically, executives use traditional worldview assumptions in situations where those assumptions are not appropriate, resulting in ineffectiveness. We conclude with three examples, strategic planning, problem solving, and performance appraisal, and show how these processes are very different if a manager makes emerging worldview assumptions rather than traditional worldview assumptions.” The Phenomenal Complexity Theory (PCT) by Hugo Letiche as published by Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Inc. 2001. This theory tells that Phenomenal complexity theory entails Making three choices: prioritizing experience and consciousness above the outcomes of the “natural bent”; choosing a logic of dialogic complexity rather than one of dualistic cause and effect and a willingness to link the experiential to the complex. CONCLUSION Different strategic schools have cropped up pretending to have the one single formula or strategy to solve every business predicament or plan. The best ways to solve any business problem is to have a look at the entire picture and not just look the problem by solving or curing only one part of the organization. The elephant story explains in simple terms that the business environment has been too complex such that we now have to master the chaos theory of solving problems. In chaos theory, the complex problem is studied and recommendations are drawn up to help alleviate if not eliminate the chaos that has engulfed us. But in the chaotic business climate, some people look at the situation with a different perception. They feel that there is no chaos. There is harmony in the complex environment. Just as the flock of birds fly in unison and the fish school beautiful swim together, each member of the group has to join and learn to contribute and cooperate with the other members of the group in the common objective of to accomplish the organization’s over all objectives. For as they say, divided we fall, United we stand. Chaos is only a part of the complexity science. They try to understand, explain and give recommendations to ease all chaotic situations. Darwin looks at human existence as a continuous fight to survive. When we apply for jobs, we compete with classmates and other people for that one vacant position with a low pay. In conclusion, many traditional strategic planning models are inaccurately simplistic. For they prescribe different procedures to solve each chaotic situation. The correct way is to look at the problem as a whole and attack it from all sides of the entire group or school or flock. REFERENCES: Bannister, R, SOCIAL DARWINISM: SCIENCE AND MYTH IN ANGLO-AMERICAN SOCIAL THOUGHT, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1979,  Strategic management, Ten Strategic Management Schools, by Vadim Kotelnikov & Ten3 East-West.  Dent, E.,Complexity of Science, a worldwide shift, George Washington University Washington DC The article Complexity and Life by Emerence,Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.2002, Business Strategy Review Vol 15 Issue 2, Summer 2004. Business Strategy Review by Costas Markides Vol 15 Issue 2, Summer 2004 The Phenomenal Complexity Theory (PCT) by Hugo Letiche as published by Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Inc. 2001. This theory tells that Phenomenal complexity theory entails  Harvard Business Review on Strategies for Growth, p 132-133,Harvard Business School Press, 1998, USA  Hunger & Wheelen, Strategic Management, p 220-221,Addison Wesley Publication R Daft, Management, Dryden Press, USA 1997  Harvard Business Review on Managing Uncertainty, p. 24-27Harvard Business School Press, USA, 1999  Harrison & Enz, Hospitality Strategic management, Harrison and Enz, Wiley & Sons, USA, 2005  Harvard Business Review, on leadership,p118-119 Harvard Business School Press, USA, complexity.orcon.net.nz Randall, Folklore of Management, Wiley & Sons, USA, 1997, p 13  Dessli, G , Management, Pearson, p  Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship.  Harvard Business Review on Managing Value Chain, Harvard Business School Press, p. 68-69,USA, 2000  Harvard Business Review on Profit, Harvard Business School Press, p 14,USA,1999  Harvard Business Review on Change, Harvard Business School Press, p 21, USA, 1999  Harvard Business Review on Managing High Tech Industries, p 55-90,USA,1999  Massie J, Essentials of management, p 62-63, Prentice Hall, USA 1987   Harvard Business Review on Crisis Management, Breakthrought thinking.  Strategic management, Ten Strategic Management Schools, by Vadim Kotelnikov & Ten3 East-West.  Harvard Business Review on Corporate Strategy, p 131-138, Harvard Business School Press, USA, 1999  Smith & Higgins, Postmodernism and Popularisation: The Cultural Life of Chaos Theory. Management Centre, University of Leicester, UK.  Dent, E.,Complexity of Science, a worldwide shift, George Washington University Washington DC Read More