STRATEGY ABSENCE AS VIRTUE

« . . . Strategy absence need not be associated with organizational failure.
. . . Deliberate building in of strategy absence may promote flexibility in
an organization. . . . Organizations with tight controls, high reliance on
formalized procedures, and a passion for consistency may lose the ability
to experiment and innovate.
• Management may use the absence of strategy to send unequivocal signals
to both internal and external stakeholders of its preference not to
engage in resource-consuming ceremony.... For example, various articles
have described Nucor's disdain for formal planning systems and the
firm's reliance instead on a consistency in action at all levels in the organization.
Nucor has no written strategic plan, no written objectives, and
no mission statement. For Nucor, an absence of many of the supposed
elements of strategy is symbolic of the no-frills, non-bureaucratic organization
Nucor has worked hard to become.
• An absence of a rigid pattern of strategic decision making may ensure
that "noise" is retained in organizational systems, without which strategy
may become a specialized recipe that decreases flexibility and
blocks learning and adaptation