Building Strategy from the Middle Reconceptualizing Strategy Process.(Review)

Building Strategy from the Middle Reconceptualizing Strategy Process Steven W. Floyd and Bill Wooldridge Sage Publications, 2000

"At its origins, strategic management was imprinted with the notion that strategy research is about helping top managers determine appropriate strategy and install necessary implementation mechanisms." Authors Floyd and Wooldridge present a well-researched and compelling argument for stretching old assumptions and considering an alternative, middle level view.

Their first chapter offers a concise review of how practitioners and ultimately academics supported the notion that strategic direction for the firm rested with top management. The idea that the role of middle level management has a powerful influence on the strategic direction of corporations is both unique and refreshing. The authors define middle managers as those professionals entrusted by the firm with significant responsibilities who have access to top management and who possess significant operating know-how.

This framework is unique because it breaks with traditional thought and practice. It is refreshing because it offers the ultimate in participative management. Further, it has always been middle management that has had to build operational tactics to implement strategy. It therefore should be axiomatic that they should have more than passive influence in the strategy making process. We pursue buy-in from the organization's workers for their support of business objectives and goals most effectively through participative working environs. Logic should prevail for strategy implementation through strategy decision making by middle managers.

Rapid environmental changes support this approach more than any other time in history. In his book LEADING THE REVOLUTION, consultant Gary Hamel points out that it is not only product life cycles that are shrinking, but also strategy cycles. The need to reinvent the organization on a continual basis necessitates middle management involvement in continual strategy change and creating a corporation that is more organic than one that embraces scale, replication and diligence. This pace of internal change will be necessary to keep pace with the dynamics of the external environmental paces of change.

Whether sustaining a current competitive advantage or adding one, middle management is best positioned to recognize competencies and competitive advantages as well as areas to develop for new positive positions. Floyd and Wooldridge point out three critical assumptions for strategy process, competitive advantage and support for the ...