From Metaphor to Practice In the Crafting of Strategy

Critical Analysis

In this text, the authors argue that strategy crafting operates at three levels, each leading to the next: physiological, psychological, and social. They extend Mintzberg’s analogy of a potter crafting clay to a literal read of craft by providing strategists basic building physical blocks to manipulate in order to work through complex strategy problems. Yet this extension is problematic: by choosing LEGO blocks as a manipulatable, the authors have added a translation layer—an abstraction—between the person (and the group), and the strategy itself. A potter manipulates the material that is literally the end product; they use tools, but there is no separation between the hands and the clay, and the clay is what is then bought, sold, used, and enjoyed (in the form of a glazed and fired vessel or object). To explore strategy as material requires exploring the raw material of strategy; what does it mean to directly manipulate the materiality of strategy?

The authors cite Piaget’s view that “human intelligence grows from the interaction of the mind with the world” (80), where direct manipulation with the natural and artificial builds knowledge: knowledge development is an active, tactile process. Direct knowledge is likely produced (I know exactly how this object I’m touching “works”), and so is abstracted principles of knowledge (I know how objects similar to this probably “work”, too). Yet this runs counter to a theory of craft. Crafting material in action depends on the unique nature of material, not the generalized quality of it, and while this clay may seem like that clay, the detail of how they differ is, in many ways, the point: it is the uniqueness of skill in manipulating a porcelain clay that leads to the uniqueness of the form that emerges. The material in specific is the constraint.

Knowledge in action in a social organization like a business is enacted. It is produced by people in real-time. But for the metaphor of craft and material to hold up, the material must be specific, it must have base qualities, and those base qualities of it can’t change; whatever it is, the craftsperson needs to establish a direct sensibility with what it can do and how it can be shaped without breaking. That direct sensibility is tacit, comes from prior experience, and is brought to a specific experience; tacit knowledge is developed through a negotiated reality, but it itself is not actually negotiated; it simply is.

The authors describe that a “vital dimension of knowledge becomes available through the mind-body link” (82). So, considering every layer between the body and the material as a disruption in direct manipulation, we could try to identify possible candidates for what the material of strategy actually is. Strategy is an approach—“we will compete on price”—which then “unlocks” a plan and tactics. What is manipulated to arrive at that strategy is unclear. A design strategy can be articulated clearly—“we will emphasize efficiency of transaction” or “we will unify the navigation of these disparate systems” or “we will be overwhelmingly aesthetic,” but the material that is formed to arrive at that strategy is difficult to imagine, and so is the tacit knowledge structure required to form the material. What is a strategist doing, and what material are they doing it to, to arrive at the strategy?

The challenge of the approach the authors take is that the use of a manipulatable material as a stand-in for the raw material of the strategy adds a level of interpretation, and introduces a lack of clarity. This externality may help a group discuss strategy, but not form strategy, unless we view the material of strategy as spoken words and abstract diagrammatic representations. In this respect, LEGO is as legitimate a choice as a pen and paper or a whiteboard.

This text provokes the question: is there actually a material of strategy, or does it require an abstraction and interpretative layer? And, if it requires that interpretation, what happens between the interpretative layer and the strategy itself?