The Five P's of Strategy

Question: Critical analysis of Henry Mintzberg's 5 Ps of Strategy?

Henry Mintzberg as well as Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampell introduce the 5 P’s of strategy in Strategy Bites Back. As most know, a strategy is a path in-order to achieve a specific goal. Each of the five P’s defines strategy while demonstrating alliteration.

The first “P” is plan. Strategy is a Plan. It is a way to deal with a particular circumstance. Within this definition, strategy is developed in two different ways consciously and purposefully. The military is a keen example says Mintzber, because strategy is concerned with “drafting the plan of war while shaping the individual campaigns and within these, deciding on the individual engagements.”

The second “P” is Ploy. Ploy can be defined as a tactic, strategy, or gimmick, or a maneuver in a game or conversation. In this definition a strategy may be implemented in order to outmaneuver ones adversary. A keen example of this is, a particular corporation or business threatening to expand its business ventures in-order to dampen its competition from building or expanding on their business organization. With that said, the real strategy is the threat, not the expansion itself, and as such is a ploy.

Pattern is the next “P”, which encompasses the consequential behavior. Strategy is a pattern because an action will be taken in conclusion of a specific strategy, distinctively, a pattern in a stream of actions. By this definition, behavior of the Ford Motor Company when Henry Ford offered his Model T only in black; in other words, by this definition, strategy is consistency in behavior, whether or not this was anticipated.

The next “P” is Position. A strategy may be chosen based on the position of the individual or team of individuals in a specific organization. In short, organization theorists like to call this “environment”. In management terms, formally, a product-market domain, the place in the environment where resources are...