OPINION STRATEGY INNOVATION AND THE QUEST FOR VALUE

Why, asks Gary Hamel, has the strategy star begun to dim? Why is strat egy no longer a ''big idea'' in most companies? Strategy innovation is key, he says, to creating new wealth. Only those companies that are c onstantly able to reinvent themselves will survive in a discontinuous world. Hamel points out that, while strategists spend a lot of time th inking about the changing context and content of strategy, they pay li ttle attention to the conduct of strategy-the task of strategy making. No one seems to know how to develop innovative strategies that create wealth. He calls for the development of a theory of strategy innovati on and offers several propositions: that strategy is emergent, much li ke life itself, that strategists have been working on the ''strategy,' ' rather than on the preconditions that give rise to strategy innovati on, that strategy is poised on the border between perfect order and to tal chaos; and that great strategy is both luck and foresight. Hamel o ffers five preconditions for the emergence of strategy: 1. The entire organization, not just top management, should have a voice in creating strategy. The process must be pluralistic and participative: 2. Conve rsations about strategy must cut across industries and organizations s o that knowledge can be combined in new ways., 3. People will embrace change when they see opportunities for rewards and growth 4. Managers must help companies reconceive themselves, customers, competitors, and opportunities. 5. Companies must do some market experimentation to de termine which new strategies work. In the end, Hamel says, we must spe nd less time working on strategy as a ''thing'' and more time understa nding what gives rise to new strategy. Only then can we discover the s ource of corporate vitality.