This article is fairly well written and quite interesting; however, it seemed as though the author had a lot of relevant things to say but only a fraction of that followed the actual path he wanted us to take as we read the article. Therefore, it created a foggy sense while reading where one could tell they were “kind of” heading in the right direction because there was no clear passage because the author attempts to persuade us by trying to pass logic for intuition and feelings. This article offered a new approach to strategic thinking because it calls for us to not only rely on vision to lead a company but to take coherence or in a sense, common sense. So that a company sees the future but can also navigate the present
The article is definitely a conceptual/theoretical discussion because while using real life examples, the argument the author tries to make is based on a mind set and a thought process. One of the main illustrations the author used to prove his point that vision without coherent leads to failure was that of Boo.com, who was guilty of having great vision and running with it but failed to take logic and coherence along with them and thus predictably failing. That is why the author’s definition of strategy seems to be that, yes it is all starts with vision but not just vision, a combination a both vision and coherence that leads to a successful strategy. The author best puts it, “…coherence of the vision. You need to enrich and enliven the vision so that it begins to speak t you and tells you what to carry with you and what is actually baggage.” The main points the author is trying to get across are: In the “enactment process, coherence is like the glue; coherence is about acting in a manner consistent with who you are given your present spot in the business landscape; where vision allows a focus on the future, coherence demands a recognition of the present.
I don’t believe this author made a big enough distinction between vision and coherence. Although, I do understand what he was trying to get at in the fact that vision is nice but you need to realize your surroundings and limitations in order to succeed, however, I feel as though he tried too hard to stretch the points and facts and that made the article foggy and confusing. This article is connected with “Leadership, Integrity, and Conflict” because they both talk about companies having a vision. This school fits in well with the 10 Schools of strategy. Especially when it comes to more deliberate schools, such as the Cognitive school. This article provides a new model that we haven’t really seen much of before. Most of the other ones we’ve read has encouraged visionaries, but this one just discourages them. The idea of being coherent rather than visionary seems to be taking the stance of the cultural school over the entrepreneurial school. There is almost always some kind of central visionary somewhere in an organization and this article is saying that companies need to depend more on their collective interpretations of the environment in order to predict it, as apposed to referring to “the vision” as some kind of guide. It is difficult for us to decide whether a company is leaning on the visionaries for guidance or not so it is hard for use to come up with a specific example. However, in a general sense, it must be taken on a case-by-case basis. If a company is beginning to depend to much on there visionaries they need to try and collaborate and consider what they know in a collective sense by following the guiding principles for being more coherent outlined in the article.
Outline
1)Introduction: the concept of vision has been transcended by the concept of coherence
- vision is only based on what has already been incorporated into your sense
making
- strategic visions make no room for emergence, so what does emerges often gets ignored and unexplored
2)Lipton’s 5 purposes of vision:
- enhancing performance measures
- promoting change
- providing the basis for a strategic place
- motivating individuals
- keeping decision making in context
3) 5 unspoken assumptions
- The world is stable enough that changes may occur are foreseeable
- Prediction is possible
- Boundaries are clearly defined
- Identity is assumed and has no need for articulation
- Outcomes are more important than processes
4) Lipton’s idea on why visions fail
- Executive’s walk does not match the talk
- Vision is not the holy grail
- Vision presents an ideal future irreconciled with the present
- Vision is either too abstract or too concrete and is imposed from the top
5) Coherence: the concept of ‘holding together’ and of self-recognition of the boundary of self, acts to tie the levels of organizations together
- Strive to become more of what you really are
- Try to channel emergence
- Try to find your preferred adjacent possible
- Act in a manner that will improve or enhance those adjacent possibilities
- Discuss identity, boundary and processes often and with many people in your surroundings
6) 5 simple guiding being coherent
- Strive to become more of what you really are
- Try to channel emergence
- Try to find your preferred adjacent possible
- Act in a manner that will improve or enhance those adjacent
possibilities
Discuss identity, boundary and processes often and with many people in your surroundings
7)Managers must:
- Define a vision
- Define a competitive strategy consistent with that vision
- Define organizational work processes that when executed, will implement the strategy
- Define individual job requirements so that employees can carry out the process effectively
8)Three dimensions for population strategies to be diversified along:
- Length of time frame
- Risk
- Relatedness to the current business
9) Questions to test the population of strategies:
- What are the major likely future scenarios
- Which scenarios, whether likely or unlikely, could present major threats?
- What is the preferred scenario?
- How will we adapt in the other potentially likely scenarios?
10) Ten Questions for asking if your strategy is robust and adaptive.