Learning skills for strategic change

Abstract

It has been reported recently by researchers in the US (Hogan et al., 1990) that the two most important causes of management incompetence in business corporations are the inability to think strategically and the inability to learn from experience. Moreover, it is further reported by the same researchers that not much is known about these apparent inabilities. My own experience, particularly over the past 10 years, suggests that these two points are indeed important, but that they are related symptoms of management incompetence and derive from the same fundamental cause; about which, on the contrary, a great deal is now known. What can be done about this so-called management incompetency, however, is perhaps not so well under-stood. This paper therefore discusses the learning skills required for bringing about planned strategic change in business organizations and provides a practical example of how such skills can be acquired through a uniquely designed management education event.