The very word strategy offers up connotations of planning and images of executives in suits and ties sitting around a large table at an off-site meeting facility and laying down quarterly objectives. These executives pour over data regarding what products are profitable and unprofitable. They then examine estimates about what opportunities the future of the market holds for their current and future products. Finally, they emerge from their off-site cave with a step-by-step guide for the rest of the hierarchy to implement. While this scene is played out in organizations across all industries, it may not be the best way to develop a strategy. The key to developing a real, viable strategy may not be to craft a simple strategic plan, but to learn how to think strategically. To begin, leaders must learn how to think like a hedgehog.

The introductory scene represents the commonly followed process of strategic planning. While numerous theorists and consulting agencies have developed different models of strategic planning, most methods of planning focus on the same essential elements: run a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis, establish objectives, and create organized steps toward attainment. This model is typically adopted because its formal process fits neatly inside formal organizations. However, many criticisms of formal strategic planning have arisen over the years. Martin argues that valid strategy employs a creative synthesis of two contrasting logics (where to play and how to win), rather than one simple, linear analytic process. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel expand on this idea when they write “Because analysis is not synthesis, strategic planning has never been strategy making.” Strategic planning is merely analysis, and without a proper synthesis of various positions, estimates and objectives, there is no value in analysis alone.

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