1. STRATEGY Process, Content, Context
Chapter 2
Strategic Thinking

2. Strategy Process Section II

3. Agenda The Issue of Strategic Reasoning
Cognitive Activities
Cognitive Abilities
Cognitive Maps
The Paradox of Logic and Creativity
The Demand for Logical Thinking
The Demand for Creative Thinking
Perspectives on Strategic Thinking
The Rational Reasoning Perspective
The Generative Reasoning Perspective
The Debate and Readings

4. Strategic Reasoning Cognitive Activities, Abilities, and Maps
The Issue of Strategic Reasoning
What is the power and what are the limitations of the human mind?
Cognitive Activities
Cognitive Abilities
Cognitive Maps
What are the intended mental tasks in order to increase the strategist’s knowledge?
Till what degree is the human brain limited what it can know?
What are the maps of a person of how the world works?

5. Strategic Reasoning Cognitive activities, maps and abilities

6. Cognitive Activities Elements of the Strategic Reasoning Process

7. Cognitive Abilities Limitations
Limited information sensing ability
Due to the physical inability to be everywhere, all the time, noticing everything
Limited information processing capacity
Humans do not have unlimited data processing abilities
Limited information storage capacity
People have only limited capacity for storing information

8. II. Logic and Creativity Dealing with the Paradox
Logical Thinking
The ability of managers to critically reflect on the assumptions they hold and to make their tacit beliefs more explicit
Creative Thinking
The ability of a manager to abandon the rules governing sound argumentation and generate new understanding

9. III. Overview of the perspectives Rational Reasoning vs
III. Overview of the perspectives Rational Reasoning vs. Generative Reasoning
GENERATIVE REASONING PERSPECIVE
Creativity over logic
Intuitive
Informal, variable rules
Inductive and imaginative
Lateral
Reflecting and sense-making activities
Imagining and doing activities
Unorthodoxy and innovativeness
Subjective, (partially) creatable
Adherence to current cognitive map
Judgment
Strategy
RATIONAL REASONING PERSPECTIVE
Logic over creativity
Analytical
Formal, fixed rules
Deductive and computational
Vertical
Recognizing and analyzing activities
Formulation and implementation activities
Consistency and rigor
Objective, (partially) knowable
Incomplete information
Calculation
Strategy as science