In the quiz we just asked you what you might not like about the Michael Porter approach to strategy. Many people have raised objections to Michael Porter's approach to strategy over the years. So we are going to spend a few minutes now talking about what some of those might be. The biggest objection that people have raised to Michael Porter's ideas about strategy in recent years have to do with their difficulty in explaining the success of certain Japanese companies. Companies like Toyota and Honda were very successful in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. They became dominant players in motorcycle and automobile markets in the US and Europe and all around the globe. And if you take a look at the markets that they entered, Michael Porter would've said that they never should've even tried. Let's take an example. Honda, in the 1960s, entered the US market for motorcycles. At the time, the US market for motorcycles was dominated by large European firms, large US firms. They had terrific products for the market. They were large motorcycles and the belief at the time was that Americans wanted large motorcycles. The market for motorcycle riders were people who wore leather, who emulated biker gangs and Honda had nothing like that kind of product. They had some product in the high end, but most of their product was in the smaller bicycles. The motorbikes that would just take you around town. So they had no real good idea about a position to establish going into the US market. Instead they just tried it. Their approach to strategy seemed to be trial and error. They tried something, they learned from it, they improved. All the way along, they outperform their rivals operationally. They were operationally outstanding. Much more efficient, much lower cost. Their approach seemed to be, and this is not what Porter would have recommended, their approach seemed to be move first, strategize later. And despite Porter's assertions that other firms could easily copy operational effectiveness, the other firms in the market weren't successful in copying What Honda did so well, operationally. Indeed, Michael Porter has a general problem with Japanese companies in the 1980s and 1990s. Eventually Honda came to dominate the US market. They discovered an entirely new market for small motorcycles in the US market, which was in fact much larger than the established market already. No one had a clue that that market existed before. They found it by trial and error. So it seems that Honda prevailed, not because they analyzed and chose a set of actions that constituted a strong position. But because they were able to execute difficult-to-imitate operational strategies that allowed them to improve continually. Porter realizes that he has this problem with Japanese companies. And so, he's tried to address it over the years. One of the things that he is famous for saying is that Japanese companies will have to learn strategy. In other words, he maintains that Japanese companies don't actually engage in strategy when they win by operational effectiveness. Others had been absolutely aghast why that claim. Henry Mintzberg, another notable strategy professor argues that Michael Porter is contradicting himself when he makes these arguments. Mintzberg says that Michael Porter cannot simultaneously argue that Toyota has not learned strategy and that strategy, as he defines it, is a prerequisite for business success. Because no one would argue with the fact that Toyota has been very successful over the past three or four decades. You can't have it both ways, is what Mintzberg says. So, what does this leave us? It leaves us with a fundamental tension. On the one hand, we have this idea which Michael Porter quite likes. And supports strategy as position. Strategy arrived at in advance from analyzing the industry. On the other hand, we have strategy as the ability to learn and improve. We have strategy discovered over time through trial and error and learning, and maintained through sustainable operational effectiveness advantages. This is not supposed to be possible according to the ideals of Michael Porter. We're gonna pause again for a reflective quiz, we wanna see which way you lean. Do you feel more that you're in the Michael Porter camp? Do you feel more than you're in the operational affect of this camp? So, we'll be right back.