If strategic planning is essentially programming, can it display the degree of adaptiveness that 21 st century enterprises need. Would ‘strategic improvisation’ be a plausible alternative? Explore the practical consequences of strategic improvisation for enterprise management. [Several sources have promoted the analogy with the improvisation of jazz performance. See: Perry, Scott and Smallwood (1993); Hatch (1999); Kanter (2002)]

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

On one hand, owners expect large enterprises to be rigorous in how they formulate and realise their
intentions, implying the need to create and then implement formal strategic plans. Yet executives are
also expected, for better and worse, to respond to unpredictable, environmental change with a
requisite degree of adaptiveness. Stated differently, how can enterprises act with both commitment
to the planning process and to the implementation of established plans, whilst tolerating, indeed
facilitating alert, pragmatic responses to circumstances? Strategic improvisation suggests a high
degree of responsiveness within a predetermined framework, though the latter would arguably be
qualitatively different from a formal plan. In musical terms it might be likened to respecting the
melody of a song whilst improvising the detailed score in real time. In essence this is jazz
performance, which requires individual members of a team or group to acknowledge the basis of a
tune (a skeletal plan), but elaborating it as they play. Typically they exchange the performance lead
periodically, according to circumstances and individual preferences. It is easier to see how this
metaphor might describe the strategic management in a small, entrepreneurial company than a
multinational giant. One approach would establish the absolutely non-negotiable ethos and the core
strategic principles and procedures within which decentralised business units are free to make and
implement operational decisions. This approach might secure rapid, but potentially uncoordinated
growth. The corollary is that some units will pursue directions tangential to the declared mission;
new directions can exploit new opportunities or prove to be loss-making or otherwise disastrous side
shows. If units enjoy this degree of freedom the central core of the enterprise still needs control
mechanisms to keep them in line and to check unwarranted deviations (here the analogy between the
coachman and the team of horses springs to mind).