Penetrating there, into his mind, and knowing what he thinks, or better how a strategist thinks, is a monumental task that few are called to decipher, if it is possible to do so; because this process moves in the midst of tacit knowledge and the potentialities with which one naturally thinks a strategist is born.
¿ What makes a strategist to succeed, while others fail ? Why do companies that use the same strategies get different results: some better than others?
In order to find explanations for the way a strategist thinks, definitions, theoretical lines and conceptualizations have been suggested. This time I present Mr. Ohmae (known in many parts of the world as Mr. Strategy) affirms that success is not usually the product of rigorous analysis but of a very particular state of mind characterized by creative and intuitive thought processes rather than rational. «… however, the strategists do not reject the analysis. In reality, they work permanently doing analysis, but they use it only to stimulate the creative process, to test the ideas that emerge, to find out the strategic consequences or not to fail in the execution of "crazy" ideas that have great possibilities and that, in otherwise, they would never have been implemented.Analysis is the starting point of strategic thinking. The strategic thinker faces problems, trends or situations that seem to constitute a harmonious whole. The strategist must dismember that whole into its constituent parts and, once he knows the meaning of each part, he must put them back together, trying to make the most of the company's competitive advantage. The solution obtained in this way is different from that obtained with linear thinking, since we have identified and studied the elements concerning our problem and have organized them in a relevant way… »once you know the meaning of each part, you must put them back together, trying to make the most of the company's competitive advantage. The solution obtained in this way is different from that obtained with linear thinking, since we have identified and studied the elements concerning our problem and have organized them in a relevant way… »once you know the meaning of each part, you must put them back together, trying to make the most of the company's competitive advantage. The solution obtained in this way is different from that obtained with linear thinking, since we have identified and studied the elements concerning our problem and have organized them in a relevant way… »
The strategy is directly related to the resolution of the conflict that has to do directly with the values and whose mission is the output. It involves living in the environment of the top management of companies, based on the vision (desired future, business dream), the mission (what we do to achieve the vision) and the processes of cultural coupling that allow culture to be aligned with strategy.
The knowledge or personal vision of the strategist, Ohmae tells us, is the key to the process. Because the process is creative and partially intuitive, and often detrimental to the status quo, grand strategies are beyond the scope of conscious analysis, and the resulting plans may seem unacceptable to the simple analyst, however. The great strategist is a flexible thinker who understands the full range of alternatives and constantly weighs the costs and benefits of each. To consider alternatives, one asks "what would happen if…?" or "if the situation were such and such, what would be our best course of action?"
The strategist's way of thinking is supremely complex, since it involves a series of elements that are not left within the reach of common thought, but is an almost unique and particular mixture of mental processes that are combined with a series of elements: Intuitive thinking, tacit knowledge, creative thinking, natural endowment, spark (ability to glimpse bright ideas that spontaneously emerge) creating an emerging behavior that is the way of thinking of the strategist.
But the strategist does not have a one-dimensional way of thinking, it is rather a diverse, varied and rarely foreseeable way of thinking, because it is a way of thinking that moves three-dimensionally in its environment, within the organization and in causal relationships creating conditions to face tomorrow, to adapt if necessary, but understanding that it moves more in the field of proactivity, because their thinking is generative rather than adaptive.
The strategist does not have a dogma, a doctrine, he is not orthodox, he is rather a visionary who knows how to foresee what conditions exist for him to emerge and emerge with his actions that many call strategy, which in most cases is not even proposed Let his action be a strategy, since he has a varied and profuse line of thought and action that is innate to him or that at least naturally emerges from the interaction of his natural faculties with tacit knowledge and relations with the environment.
If there are no conditions in the middle for the strategist, he creates them and shapes them. After all, he does not have a static way of thinking and proceeding defined. He can be a lion that attacks fiercely in the business world, or he can be a chameleon that mimics, to go unnoticed as he advances and leaves his competition behind. The strategist can be a dog that sniffs his opportunity from afar, and keeps track of past, present and future events. It can be a cunning feline lurking and lurking in the dark when the market is stealthily turbulent and suddenly falls over its competition, leaving it in the rear or knocking it out of its way.
The strategist is an ant who works in the summer, because surely the arrival of winter will not take him by surprise. The strategist is a shark feared in the depths of business, the strategist is an eagle in the heights that accurately launches his attacks and achieves effective results in the business world. The strategist is the small mustard seed germinating in the middle of the big forest trees, in other words it is Lotus germinating in the middle of a forest where Microsoft and IBM live. «… As Fortune magazine reported; At GroupWare, Lotus Development is the leader… »(Quoted by Jack Trout, The New Positioning, 1996.)
The strategist is the horse that refuses to continue the march, because the enemy is on the lookout, therefore he decides to change the direction of his destiny, not for fear of facing it but to better position himself, know him and advance. But how does a strategist move in the midst of so many situations that it is not possible to define his mental structure in detail? It is the subject of complexity theory. Neither can we take his mind to the laboratory and analyze the course that a thought follows, since emerging behavior is only possible in the course of his activity, he is by definition a symbolic analyst who reads encrypted codes in the environment that are issued by society contemporary.
The strategist has a great ability to weather uncertainties because he has quite developed "the attribute of viability, that is, the ability to respond to stimuli not appropriately foreseen by its creator" (Ramón Beltrán Costa and Others, Ed. Holos, Buenos Aires. 1993). Essentially it is the ability to recognize the need for change or adaptation to the new conditions of the environment that requires our adaptation to it. And this aspect is essential to have strategies and tactical actions that decisively seek this adaptation.
In the modern Company, the strategy is the center. By the eighties the strategy worked very well fused to the planning and they were by all known strategic planning. We were in a world without too many surprises and therefore the long-term transformation became a guide for the action of the Companies. Companies foresaw the undesirable and controlled the desirable. Today, the transience, the uncertainty, the complexity, the novelty, the diversity, the technology have made the strategy linked to planning lose validity. Today we are dominated by uncertainty and that is why "the skin" and the brain of today's strategists are very different from yesterday's strategic planners. Today the difference is in whether the strategy explores and leads the ideas, and the planning relates,connects and coordinates the process of linking ideas with action.
«… to become a good strategist you must constantly exercise strategic thinking. This should be a daily practice, not something that is resorted to only when difficulties arise. The great strategist does not depend on luck or inspiration but on strategic thinking: the combination of analytical method and mental elasticity. "
