PROF. HENRY MINTZBERG: STRATEGY AS SEEING

This fine quote excerpted from the recent article, 'Every Leader Must be a Change Agent or Face Extinction', by contributor Glenn Llopis on forbes.com, reminds me of a valuable lesson I have had the wonderful opportunity to pick up from strategy guru Prof. Henry Mintzberg back in the nineties:

"... Leadership in the 21st century not only requires the ability to continuously manage crisis and change – but also the circular vision to see around, beneath and beyond the obvious in order to anticipate the unexpected before circumstances force your hand... "

Prof. Mintzberg introduced his beautiful concept of "strategy" or rather "strategic thinking" as "seeing", as illustrated below:

- Seeing ahead: planning ahead;

- Seeing behind: drawing lessons from the past;

- Seeing above: seeing the big picture;

- Seeing below: finding and understanding the root causes;

- Seeing beside: thinking laterally;

- Seeing beyond: expecting better futures with long range projections;

- Seeing through: following up and following through the vision.

However, according to him, this is not a recipe for strategic thinking but "seeing" is crucial to the formation of the strategic thinking process.