Does your strategy need a strategy ?

"Five Strategy Archetypes Each environment corresponds to a distinct archetypal approach to strategy, or color in the strategy palette, as follows: predictable classical environments lend themselves to strategies of position, which are based on advantage achieved through scale or differentiation or capabilities and are achieved through comprehensive analysis and planning. Adaptive environments require continuous experimentation because planning does not work under conditions of rapid change and unpredictability. In a visionary setting, firms win by being the first to create a new market or to disrupt an existing one. In a shaping environment, firms can collaboratively shape an industry to their advantage by orchestrating the activities of other stakeholders. Finally, under the harsh conditions of a renewal environment, a firm needs to first conserve and free up resources to ensure its viability and then go on to choose one of the other four approaches to rejuvenate growth and ensure long-term prosperity. The resulting overriding imperatives, at the simplest level, vary starkly for each approach:

 ? Classical: Be big(Be Brave - Rupert Knight added this). 

? Adaptive: Be fast. 

? Visionary: Be first. 

? Shaping: Be the orchestrator.

 ? Renewal: Be viable.  

 Using the right approach pays off. In our research, firms that successfully match their strategy to their environment realized significantly better returns—4 to 8 percent of total shareholder return—over firms that didn’t.2 Yet around half of all companies we looked at mismatch their approach to strategy to their environment in some way. Let’s delve a little deeper to see how to win using each of the basic colors of strategy and why each works best under specific circumstances."

This is an except from the amazing book