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Strategy Follows Structure: Developing Distinctive Skills
Peters, Thomas J.
26/3  (Spring 1984): 111-125

Distinctive organizational performance, for good or ill, is almost entirely a function of deeply engrained repertoires. The organization, within its marketplace, is the way it acts from moment, not the way it thinks it might act or ought to act. But people should never forget for a moment that the analytic models are not neutral. Any analyst worth his salt, with anything from a decision tree to a portfolio analysis, can shoot down any idea. Analysts are well-trained nay Sayers, professional nay Sayers. Yet it turns out that only passion, faith, and enthusiasm win. Passion can also lead to losses, many of them, of that there is no doubt. Yet there is no alternative. People simply can't plan our way to certain success. Author John Naisbitt in his book "Megatrends," asserts that strategic planning turned out to be an orderly, rational way to efficiently ride over the edge of the cliff. Above all, the winning companies that people have observed small and large, regulated or unregulated, mature or new, are ruled by somewhat channeled passion in pursuit of distinctive skill building and maintenance.

 

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