This has been hugely damaging. No-one in Accounting, Architecture, Engineering or Medicine would argue that their profession is just a ‘craft’, or that emerging young professionals have no need to master the basics of their field. They certainly would not disparage training programs that teach ‘analysis’ as being trivial and irrelevant. We have reached a point where senior leaders are trying to run their organizations’ strategy with not only no idea how to work things out themselves [which senior folk should not do in any case], but no idea either what ‘working out’ they should ask their subordinates to do. To see the damage this has done, look at what having amateurs in charge of strategy in banking, retailing and a host of other industries has done for us – thanks Henry.

He’s not wrong in everything. Of course it’s a good idea to bring real-world cases into class. His aim of helping managers do a better job, not just get one, e.g. through his Masters in Practising Management is great.  And of course he’s right that you can’t learn all about ‘management’ in class – but no other profession would take that view either. You don’t get to be good at any of them without a lot of practice.

But as ever he goes to ridiculous extremes. It simply isn’t true that we know no more about business than biologists did before they had named the species. And it’s ridiculous to argue that managers will learn more from reflecting on just their own experience and that of a small selection of peers, rather than from the accumulated wisdom of the entire profession. If that’s how engineers or doctors learned, we would still be building bridges from piles of stones and sticking leeches on sick people. 

By all means help managers Henry, but butt out of strategy.

The article by Shumeet Banerji CEO of Booz & Co and Neil McArthur MD of Booz Europe helpfully groups firms into 4 categories – strong, stable, struggling and failing. You would expect stable companies to be strengthening their position by seeking complementary acquisitions, and the weaker groups to be conserving cash, for example, but neither group is by and large pursuing these or other appropriate actions.

The survey also confirms another finding I expected – that most firms expect to emerge stronger from the downturn [especially in developing economies]. ‘Most’ may be disappointed, but many firms should do so and be working towards making it happen.

Boom times create all kinds of difficult industry conditions – competitors charging into ‘strategic’ initiatives that make no sense, new entrants taking on markets they have no hope of succeeding in, everyone expanding too fast and creating over-capacity. It’s when things get tough that all these challenges pile up and get too much for weaker firms – and that’s when strong firms can sort out the mess. So, for example, we should be seeing more acquisitions and faster rationalisation than seems to be the case. No surprise either that developing economy firms are more optimistic – in addition to their lower basic cost base, their recent arrival means many have been able to grow a ‘clean’ business model, while established firms in old economies were adding on bits and pieces and complicating their businesses. I know which position I would rather be starting from today!