Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning By Henry Mintzberg

Henry Mintzberg is acknowledged as one of the leading thinkers about strategic planning. In this landmark book, Mintzberg examines the limitations of the strategic planning process. His main thesis is that planning and strategy making are mutually exclusive activities.

While acknowledging a vital role for planning, he claims that the process can straitjacket an organization by stifling innovation and commitment. On the other hand, strategy making is a fluid, informal process requiring adaptability. Mintzberg includes an impressive amount of research in this scholarly, readable treatise, and he suggests how strategy making and planning can be implemented to complement each other. An important work. Buy it at amazon and save.

Strategy Bites Back - By Henry Mintzberg and Others

Another strategy book by Mintzberg (can you tell we like his work?), but this time something completely different. Along with his co-authors Mintzberg et al write a book that is designed to jolt you out of conventional thinking, and to stimulate ideas on strategies for you organizations. As one reader wrote:

This is pure genius at work. I bow my head in awe. This is not recommended reading, this is the kind of book you MUST read if you're into strategy. Cut down on Porter, Kay, Drucker, etc., and read this instead! After reading this, you can re-visit the old schools and see the world in a different light. In short, I am ecstatic. You'll pry this book from my dead hands (if you can get it away from me even then...).

Read it, or you'll miss a very funny book (if you don't laugh out load a number of times, you lack all sense of humour) as well as a very thought-provoking book with a very important message, which even manages to make strategy fun (you'll understand more after having read the book).

STRATEGIC PLANNING by George A. Steiner

A basic book on strategic and management planning, for those of you who want to start at that point.

George A. Steiner's classic work, known as the bible of business planning, provides practical advice for organizing the planning system, acquiring and using information, and translating strategic plans into decisive action. An invaluable resource for top and middle-level executives, Strategic Planning continues to be the foremost guide to this vital area of business management. Purchase this book from amazon for discount price.

Strategic Planning and Performance Management: Develop & Measure a Winning Strategy by Graham Kenny

Most people don't realize, or connect the process of strategic planning with the process of managing performance, but linking the two is one of the secrets of making both planning and managing performance work.

Provides a clear and concise roadmap for designing, implementing and measuring strategy. The focus is on strategic factors, which are defined in a unique way as the criteria on which an organization or business unit has to do well in order to succeed.

For organizations to be successful, they must take a stakeholder perspective of their performance – stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, employees and owners. The book cites many case studies including: 7-Eleven, Roche, K-mart, McDonald’s, Levi Strauss, Accor Hotels, Gallo Wines, Daimler Chrysler, Sears Roebuck, Mont Blanc, Tag Heuer, Lexus, Semco, Bright Horizons, Burns Philp, Scania Trucks and British Airways. Buy this book from amazon.com

The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management by Stephen G. Haines

Over the last decade, we've increased our understanding of the idea of "systems" -- that the parts of a whole interact, and affect each other, so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Understanding the notion of systems helps in the strategic planning process.

Easy-to-follow and understand, The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management presents the first practical application of "systems thinking", a concept first introduced by Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline as a new, better and elegantly simple A-B-C approach to strategic management, planning, and change. It provides a unique Systems Thinking Approach' that places equal emphasis on planning, strategies, and change management processes in support of customer satisfaction.