Decalogue of contemporary strategist – fatal errosrs of strategic management process in practice

Abstract

In an era of chaos and rapid cyclical changes in the global economy, strategic management is the most serious and most difficult challenge for top managers. The processes taking place in the modern economy are non-linear and chimeric and, as such, they create the situation, that any attempt to predict and design the future does not make sense. As, K. Obłój writes, "... in a world of utter randomness, chaos, lack of repeatability, it is impossible to predict anything, what you need to know" [1].
Unfortunately, the above mentioned features are rarely taken into account by managers in the process of strategic management. Business practice around the world is still dominated by the belief that every organization must use its own business strategy, which is a set of key principles that define the scope, objectives and results of its operations. Those fairly traditional approach to business strategy, set by planning mainstream from early 70ties, today contrasts with the realities of the modern business and the era of rapid change and even total unpredictability. The conventional understanding of strategy as a plan of action calls the phenomenon of strategic degeneration of enterprises and in practice reveals the many dysfunctions of strategic management.

The aim of this study is to catalog the major faults and the deformation of strategic management practices and to identify the most important determinants of effective strategic thinking, responding to the challenges of modern business. Presented in this paper the main directory of defects and anomalies of strategic management is likely to be incomplete, but it certainly shows the most common and pressing issues.