A jumbo problem: It is easier to ride an elephant than get a handle on strategy

It's no exaggeration to say that for every manager in the world, there's a unique strategy. Which is why different companies perform differently and even within the same organisation, all the managers don't deliver equally. Why should that be the case when companies, at least the better ones, recruit managers with comparable strategy skill sets and operate in more or less the same environment? There's no simple answer to it, but what it does point to is the complexity involved in strategising. It really starts with some fundamental issues, not least of which is the question, what is strategy?

To managers who talk strategy as naturally as they breathe, that question may seem inane. But Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand, and Joseph Lampel-all professors of management-don't think the manager today really knows what strategy is, which one of the strategic management 'schools' to follow, or whether it is at all possible to strategise in the insouciant sense of the word. A large part of the problem, the authors contend in this first India reprint of their 1998 book by Pearson, is due to the sheer volume of work available in the area of strategic management. Hence, the analogy of strategy as an elephant and managers as the seven blind men trying to make sense of the beast.

STRATEGY SAFARI By Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel Pearson PP: 406 Price: Rs 808

Before we go further along the review, a quick note on why we are giving so much prominence to a seven-year-old book. One reason has to do with Mintzberg, the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at Canada's McGill University. Despite being an 'insider', Mintzberg has built a huge reputation for himself by simply being a contrarian. In his dozens of books and articles, he's ranted against the b-school pedagogy, slammed conventional theories on strategy and planning, and bullied managers over their fondness for management fads. Not surprisingly, his no-nonsense approach to management has struck a chord with practising managers in large parts of the world. The other reason has to do with the insufficient attention that Mintzberg's writings have received in India. It's time serious and amateur students of management in the country paid more attention to him.

Back to Strategy Safari. What is it that Mintzberg does in its 400-odd pages? To put it simply, he lines up all the pundits who've written on strategic management since the 1960s or so and ticks them off one by one: he tells you just what's good and bad about their theories. For the sake of convenience, Mintzberg categorises them into 10 schools, comprising design, planning, positioning, entrepreneurial, cognitive, learning, power, cultural, environmental and configuration. Over 10 chapters, one for each, he critiques them, explaining what he thinks are their contributions and limitations. Don't miss the six-page table on "Dimension of the 10 Schools", where you get to meet the various strategy "animals" (like water buffalo, monkey and lion).

Some of the criticisms that Mintzberg and his co-authors make really come across as mundane. "Strategies have to form as well as be formulated" (implying that it's not possible for managers to predict with any accuracy how their strategies will play out, and that there's an element of uncertainty in every strategy), isn't a big piece of advice to any manager. Similarly, the authors contend that "explicit strategies are blinders designed to focus direction and so to block out peripheral vision". Perhaps, but was Jack Welch wrong when he articulated his "be #1 or #2 or get out" strategy at GE, or was Eiji Toyoda making a mistake when he asked his engineers to built the best possible luxury car in the world (the Lexus)? The point: Sweeping generalities don't help.

In Mintzberg's critique, though, there's an important message for managers. It's one thing for academics and consultants to talk strategy, but quite another for the practising manager to get a handle on it. Reason: The manager typically works with incomplete information and, therefore, must rely as much on intuition as data. The savvy manager, then, would refuse to stay wedded to just one of the many strategy schools and instead pick the best that each has to offer.

GLOBALISATION INDIA'S ADJUSTMENT EXPERIENCE By Biplab Dasgupta Sage Publication PP: 282 Price: Rs 350

It is a rare book that advertises, prominently on its jacket, the audience it is targeting. Biplab Dasgupta's Globalisation: India's Adjustment Experience is one such. "... this book will attract the attention of students and scholars in the fields of economics and political science," says the write-up on the back cover. "It will also be of interest to policy makers and NGOs." There is one more line in this write-up that is illuminating. "This book is a cogent appraisal of India's economic reforms by a prominent Leftist commentator." Globalisation is all that. And to Dasgupta's credit, the anti-reforms arguments he presents are well-reasoned and logical, not at all like the shrill diatribe that Leftists usually spout. The book is littered with typos ("opt example" for instance) and Dasgupta's tone borders on the sententious at times, yet Globalisation is another reminder that the western model of economic development may not be the best for a country like India. Pity it doesn't present an alternative.

LASTING LEADERSHIP By Mukul Pandya and Robbie Shell Wharton School Publishing PP: 266 Price: Rs 499

If you've read the strategy safari review, you'll know why successful leaders are a scarce commodity. In an uncertain and complex world, where it's easier to get things wrong than right, it takes a whole lot to lead large organisations to success quarter after quarter, year after year. So, how do they do it? More importantly, if the how can be deconstructed, can it then be employed to create more such leaders? The answer, according to Mukul Pandya and Robbie Shell, is yes. In fact, that is the premise of Lasting Leadership, produced to commemorate Nightly Business Report's 25 years in January last year. The book features 25 exceptional leaders of the past 25 years, but it doesn't aim to offer condensed biographies of their lives. Instead, it picks up one major tipping point or milestone in their lives and then draws the leadership lessons. The 25 leaders, picked by a panel of Wharton judges, represent a broad spectrum. If you have Intel's Andy Grove, adjudged the most influential among the 25, on one end, then you have Grameen Bank's Muhammad Yunus on the other (there are no Indian examples, though). Based on their 25 leaders, the authors-editors at Knowledge@Wharton, a web-based business journal, draw up a list of eight attributes of lasting leadership, ranging from truth telling to managing risk. Like the authors point out, "none of the leaders in this book has all these attributes", but a combination of these can be cultivated into effective leadership.