Seven management follies that threaten strategic success

Abstract

Purpose

The objective of the paper is to summarize major faults in the process that later lead to strategy failures. These faults, or follies as the authors term them, infect all stages of the strategy process and can be ameliorated through careful managerial attention and action.

Design/methodology/approach

These follies are interconnected, one building on another, but for the sake of exposition the authors treat them separately. They identify seven managerial follies dealing with purview, diagnosis, presumptions, direction, implementation, one‐way communication and willful blindness.

Findings

The authors describe and illustrate the follies with real life examples and argue that these follies can be ameliorated by habits of thought and institution of organizational routines, both levers that can be employed by executives.

Practical implications

Based on the authors' extensive experience, strategic failures are preventable if one avoids the seven follies. To kick start recognition and treatment of the follies, they summarize a set of questions to keep in mind as managers craft strategies.

Originality/value

For each folly, they outline how clear and specific habits of thought and organizational routines can mitigate the potential disastrous consequences of the folly.

Citation

Narayanan, V.K. and Fahey, L. (2013), "Seven management follies that threaten strategic success", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 41 No. 4, pp. 24-29. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-04-2013-0022