Dear users and future users of our books,
As we argue in our book Strategy: An international perspective, strategy can be understood as paradoxes. There is not one cookie cutter answer to deal with strategic challenges: different perspectives offer divergent explanations of how to best provide adequate responses. Depending on the context, some issues demand specific strategy styles, enforcing the need to learn about your own personal preferences. The Strategy Profiler™ sheds a light on this.
Every individual has their own preferred way of approaching strategic issues. These personal preferences relate to the 22 key strategic perspectives (grouped in 11 strategy paradoxes), as can be found in Bob de Wit’s books. The Strategy Profiler™ records your responses to a series of statements. The results come together in a report, detailing where you stand in relation to the key strategic perspectives.
Finding out more about your preferred perspectives on strategy, is valuable for several reasons:
- Understanding your own bias. By understanding your own preferences, you also realize which strategy styles appeal less to you, which styles you are neglecting or which styles you even dislike. Wisdom starts with knowing your own bias, in particular in the interaction with others.
- Identifying areas for personal development and growth. By having a clear picture of your preferences, it becomes clear which alternative strategy styles you may wish to explore, to identify which valuable elements they represent and how you might be able to integrate these perspectives into your personal strategy style.
- Identifying the degree of diversity in teams. Understanding your own bias is of particular importance when comparing with others. A certain degree of diversity among team members is often considered essential for healthy group dynamics.
- Identifying potential sources of misunderstanding and conflict. By comparing your own preferences with the preferences of other persons in your group or persons in other groups, it will become clearer where your style matches with the style of others and where it differs. When there are divergent strategy styles, this might result in misunderstanding each other and conflicts over the best way to develop and implement strategy can be expected.
If you want to find out what your strategic preferences are, send an e-mail to g.schrijvers@strategy-works.com to request the Strategy Profiler™. You will receive your personal report and an online coaching session to discuss your results, the total price is €200,-. We also offer package deals to academic institutes and lecturers who wish to make the Strategy Profiler part of their curriculum.
