STRATEGIC LEARNING
INTRODUCTION
After having studied strategic management in detail, the strategic learning workshop was held on the 2nd and 3rd of July 2003, which broadened my study of the above subject and gave me a platform to explore and analyse the numerous issues by which every organisations are effected and the ways to unlock new perspectives by planning for the future in the form of learning. As described by Peter Schwartz (1991) strategic learning can be described in the simple words as “the art of long view”.
In the world of uncertainty and ambiguity it is crucial for the organisations to thrive successfully and create possible future choices so that all the options made by the strategists can be easily carried out.
Strategic learning helps us in providing a set of tools to comprehend the different forces which act on the organisation, and therefore help us to plan as we learn, which in turn enables to make better decisions confidently.
TOOL 1
STRATEGIC POSITIONING MAPPING:
Strategic positioning mapping as the name suggests denotes the strategic position of an individual or a group in relation to the main player identified in a particular issue and thereby deriving the various expectations out of each other which helps us to identify the influences these key players have on the main individual in planning for the future.
Since the successful and timely completion of my MBA course was the key issue faced by me as seen from the appendices 1 so I was and am aware of its importance and the key factors associated with it, but the idea that this issue could have an impact on others whether directly or indirectly did not strike my mind.
Mapping is the key place together has helped me to identify how their power can influence and bring out the best in a decision-making.
My learning from strategic mapping helped me to think more about the issues concerning myself in a wider concept putting myself in the centre position while mapping has helped me to identify the importance of various key players involved, which I was not aware of before, has enabled me to deeply analyse the key individuals and groups whose expectations of myself and vice versa have a positive and negative impact in planning a strategic for the future with regards to the issues faced by me. It helps us to extend our assumptions that within an issue apart from the key factors, these are other minute details, which should be looked after in order to explore the complexity and ambiguity of a particular issue.
As strategic learning is for future planning of an uncertain world, strategic positioning mapping is a tool which helps to identify different groups of individuals who are indirectly associated with us so that their identification helps us to avoid confusion, resistance, and conflict within a given situation to enable us to produce an error free strategy for the future.
Therefore from an organisations view point, it can be said that strategic mapping places different stakeholder in a web of relationships to absorb what is going on in the environment, analyse critically the critical problems and issues facing the organisations and finally “act on that information with appropriate business moves”. [Geus, APD (1998)].
For example, identifying key issues that costs problems in real life in the life cycle of organisations.
Having identified the key players for a better future learning, it is necessary to raise one question in respect to the corporate scenario-what is the role of planning in corporate learning? After sufficient research it has been found out that the decision process in every organisation is a learning process as “people change their own mental models and build up a joint model as they talk” [Geus, APD (1998)] so it is necessary to review the expectations of key individuals and group found out through strategic positioning mapping as the ability to manage knowledge within the organisation is the only way to sustain the competitive advantage.
TOOL 2
STORY TELLING OF THE CURRENT ISSUE:
Story telling as rightly described by Schwartz (1991) is the Pathfinders tale. It is an effective tool of strategic learning as it provides a detailed insight into the complexity of the issue raised which helps in providing a better analysis to formulate an appropriate strategy for the future. These detailed explorations of thoughts and feelings in a story help us to recognise and adapt the ever-changing aspects of the present business environment.
After having identified the key players the descriptive writing about the whole issue in the form of a story helped me to answer the Why’s and Why nots’. Moreover it has brought out my strong belief about my feelings, my assumption, my attitudes and my expectations, which is extremely necessary to analyse the situation. See appendices 2 for details.
Narrating the whole story of not being able to cope up with the stress and pressure of the whole MBA course as well as working part time for a living has helped in describing some of the key events which took place in between leading to the origin of my problem.
My viewpoints which, were vague in my mind, were clearly expressed in specific words in the form of arguments and claims in the story telling episodes.
I felt prior to my workshop I might have done justice to my decisions and might have taken them hastily only looking at them superficially rather than actually going into details and analysing them. It also makes the stakeholder mapping as described above more meaningful.
As Tony Grundy (1994) states that Strategic learning is about dealing messiness at work so story telling of an issue helps us to solve a problem by looking at pros and cons of a situation.
After describing positive aspects of story telling it is necessary for an organisation to decide in this fast pace environment, whether story telling of a current work issue can be provided sufficient time that it requires to fully expressing itself?
The answer to this question has various responses from various authors.
According to Schwartz (1991) stories “form a method for articulating the different path ways that might exist tomorrow and finding appropriate movements down each of those possible parts”, which makes it absolutely necessary for the same, while it is time consuming for others to elaborate on a particular issue for decision making, but in my opinion “a stitch in time saves nine” which means a little time taken to analyse a crucial situation will remove the messiness and enable us to formulate effective decisions in an unpredictable future world.
TOOL 3
COGNITIVE MAPPING:
Cognitive mapping is based on the work of Fran Ackerman, Colin Eden and Steve Cropper from the University of Strathclyde. It consists of bipolarity or bi-polar phrases. Cognitive map helps to provide structure to a messy and complex data, which in turn helps in solving a problem as well as in extracting large quantity of quality data from any important document.
As seen in appendices 3, a part of the two-day activity, our group have designed a cognitive map depicting the limited time allotted for dissertation rather than a reasonable time. Being a technique with bi-polar phrasing, has not only helped us to identify the negatives and consequences as a result of those causes, but also helped in providing the alternative which was reasonable or ample time for dissertation, thereby providing help with structuring and unpacking of complexity of the situation.
There were various problems, which we identified as group. We then found many consequences of our problems and their positive situations as to why these events happened in the way they happened, till we reached one main reason as to why all problems happened. The whole idea was to find out how interrelated the problems are. The consequences and raisins kept going in circles in the cognitive map, which led to the final outcome.
Since strategic learning (Grundy, T. 1994) can be described as “An open process of exploring complex and ambiguous issues effecting the organisations, teams and individuals”, so cognitive mapping can be said to be a two structuring complex data which then becomes easy to use to find a solution to the problem.
From an organisations viewpoint, we find the larger the organisation, the more complex are the data’s. So there lies a necessity of unwinding the tangles internally for effective problem solving and future planning.
Hence the question arises out of the fact that why should the future managers not rely on the natural method of learning which occurs when a management team meets. Will the traditional method be obsolete? The only answer to this question as per my research that human minds are complex and according to Arie de Geus (1998) most people can play with two to three variables at a time, so it is necessary to follow certain structure for future with decision making.
TOOL 4
SCENARIOS:
A scenario as described by Schwartz (1998) is a “ tool for ordering ones perceptions about alternative future environment in which ones decision might be played out”. Since strategic learning is mainly to ensure proper decisions are made today with a deep understanding about how they might turn out (Schwartz 1998). So scenarios can be said to be an effective tool to help us take appropriate measure keeping in mind the long-term perspective so that the organisation in the future can recognise and adapt to various changes effectively. Doing masters in business administration helps us to for see future managers, so scenarios in my opinion allows a manager to be prepared for whatever that might happen.
In the two day session of strategic learning workshop, we were given a question “what are the key issues, factors and forces of uncertainty for the world economy till 2013”? This way we have followed peter swords (1998) way of developing scenario. Our topic as seen from appendix 4 deals with the consequences of no political difference and sharing technology and developed countries benefits and then summarising it helps in better analysation of the situation.
In the organisational context scenarios are the most powerful tools of strategic learning for challenging the mental models and for removing the obstacles, which will allow the managers to anticipate, difficult that are yet unaware by the managers of the organisations who have not yet adopted.
But now, the question lies, as to what percentage of managers have actually taken into consideration scenarios for future planning in the ever-growing world of uncertainty? Research is still going on and there is no fixed percentage allotted but it is seen that more and more organisations are strategically trying to learn to plan appropriately and effectively for the future.
But a closer analysis of the workshop has helped me to realise that not only the organisations on a bigger scale but it can also help us in making personal decisions which would affect our future in a positive way. Scenarios I felt can help me in taking better decisions which are usually difficult and needs careful planning for example-to choose a job, to judge the validity of the investment, or may be even to take appropriate decisions for future businesses. It will help us to dream effectively about our own future.
CONCLUSION
The world of tomorrow is uncertain as discussed earlier, which essentially forces us to take appropriate decision instead of depending on “The lady luck to shower her blessings on us”. According to Schwartz, P. (1999), what is increasingly affecting all of us in preparing for a better future “are the tangibles of life and not the intangibles. i.e. hopes and fears our beliefs and dreams. Only stories –scenarios and our ability to visualise different kind of futures adequately capture this intangibles”. The activities undertaken in the two-day workshop of strategic learning allowed me as an individual to understand, critically analyse and evaluate the complexity of the problem faced by the organisations as well as the individuals.
Since the main purpose of the workshop was to develop our strategic vision with the help of the four tools described earlier, in my opinion it helps us to explore the meaning of strategic learning and its use in finding new word and fresh perspectives for the future.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- Grundy, T (1994), Strategic Learning in Action, McGraw-Hill.
- Schwartz, P. (1991), The Art Of The Long View, John Wiley & Sons.
- Sanchez, R and Heene, A (1997), Strategic Learning and Knowledge Management, John Wiley & Sons.
- De Geus, A (1988), Planning as learning, Harvard Business Review, Vol 66, No2, pp 70-74.
- Mintzberg, H (1990) ‘The Design School, reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management, Strategic Management Journal, Vol 11, pp 171-95.
[Accessed on the 20th of July, 2003]
[Accessed on the 21st of July, 2003].
[Accessed on 19th of July, 2003]
