I am preparing a course on strategic management/leading. I will use some
of the ideas in this list and much of the spirit here, so it is time to
thank you all for your engagement in this forum.
The traditional target of strategic management is "best fit to the
environment, basis for longterm survival" and understood as "leading to
competitive advantage". Often, organisational learning is understood as a
necessity to support this target in a rapidly changing world.
On this list, I would like to trigger a process to explore another view of
strategy with the focus on value creation and problem solving for the
customer/target group instead of looking too much after the competitors.
What is your preferred definition of "strategic management"? Or do you
avoid the word strategic for its closeness to military and its touch of
"control the future" or...?
To make a start, I thought about the funny word "survival". Isn't this
illusion anyhow (as Keynes put it: "In the long run we are all dead")? So,
what strategy should be about is not survival but life itself.
With this, I tried to apply the "Bergpredigt" (Matthaus 5-7) to a business
target system in 4 dimensions (by Siemens-manager Gro_e-Oetringhaus) and
found the "house, built on rocks instead of sand". It is very provoking:
1. Dimension: Vision - Love is possible, Love is life
2. Dimension: Model - "Ndchstenliebe" (Love for the next (?))
3. Dimension: Leading System - "Feindesliebe" (Love for the enemy (?))
4. Dimension: Measure for success - golden rule
Isn't "love for the enemy" a great competitive strategy? I should ask
Michael Porter.
Can one committ to this system? Can one committ to this system even in a
multicultural context? I believe, that many of you, at least those
participating in the mission, spirituality and religion threads, agree,
that this is what learning is about.
The advantage of "building on sand" is, that it is much smoother than
rocks. I am not able to build a course on "strategic management" on this
understanding yet.
I am wondering whether this is worth a thread on this list.
Best Regards,
Winfried
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>