Crafting Marketing Strategy
Question: "I've heard the the term 'crafting strategy'. What does it mean exactly and how can I use it in a mid-sized company?"
This term came from a Harvard Business Review article by Henry Mintzberg. His view is that the most productive and real-world way to build strategy for a company management is not the strategic planning model, but rather, one that continually merges and blends the formulation of strategy with it's implementation.
He uses the example of a potter at a wheel molding a lump of clay: the potter likely doesn't know at the start what it will be exactly. Rather, as she interacts and works the clay, she observes patterns and formations emerge in the clay and then proceeds to work and develop them.
In an enterprise, we work and get results or not, then try other initiatives. We keep what works, and slough off the rest, just like the potter at a wheel. In a sense, the crafting strategy idea is one I like, and is consistent with an approach I call "small victories" which is the pilot small scale testing of ideas, products, and executions in the field.
Think about the idea of 'crafting strategy' on the move and in the flow of work and experience instead of solely planning and creating strategies on a cognitive level.
Power Decisions Group
San Francisco USA
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