Quinn's approach is based on the assumption the incremental processes are, and should be, the

prime mode used for strategy setting. Such a philosophy is also represented by Mintzberg.
James Brien Quinn describes how 10 large companies actually arrived at their most important
strategic changes. He argues that the formal "rational" planning often becomes a substitute for
control instead of a process for stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship.
Quinn suggests that the most effective strategies of major enterprises tend to emerge step by
step from an iterative process in which the organization probes the future, experiments, and
learns from a series of partial (incremental) commitments rather than through global
formulations of total strategies.
This process is both logical and incremental. He recommends that incremental processes should
be consciously used to integrate the psychological, political, and informational needs of
organizations in setting strategy.
According to Quinn, the total strategy is largely defined by the development and interaction of
certain major subsystem strategies. Each of these subsystems to a large extent has its own
peculiar timing, sequencing, informational, and power necessities. Different subsets of people
are involved in each subsystem strategy.
Moreover, each subsystem's strategy is best formulated by following a logic dictated by its own
unique needs. Because so many uncertainties are involved, no managers can predict the
precise way in which any major subsystem will ultimately evolve, much less the way all will
interact to create the enterprises's overall strategic posture. Consequently, executives manage
each subsystem incrementally in keeping with its own imperatives.
Effective strategic managers in large organizations recognize these realities and try to
proactively shape the development of both subsystem and total-enterprise strategies in a
logical incremental fashion. They do not deal with information-analysis, power-political, and
organizational-psychological processes in separate compartments. Instead they consciously and
simultaneously integrate all three of these processes into their actions at various crucial states
of strategy development.
Quinn argues that incrementalism is the most appropriate model for most strategies changes,
because it helps the strategic leader to:

1. Improve the quality of information utilized in corporate strategic decisions.

2. Cope with the varying lead times, pacing parameters, and sequencing needs of the
subsystems through which such decisions tend to be made.
3. Deals with the personal resistance and political pressures any important strategic
change encounters.
4. Build the organizational awareness, understanding, and psychological commitment
necessary for effective implementation.
5. Decrease the uncertainty surrounding such decisions by allowing for interactive
learning between the enterprise and its various impinging environments.
6. Improve the quality of the strategic analysis and choices by involving those people
closest to the situation and by avoiding premature closure on the basic of potentially
incorrect decisions.

The strategic leader is critical in the incrementatlism process because he is either personally or
ultimately responsible for the proposed changes in strategy, and for establishing the structure
and processes within the organization.
Although each strategic issue will have its own peculiarities, a somewhat common series of
management processes seems required for most major strategic changes.
Most important among these are: sensing needs, amplifying understanding, building awareness,
creating credibility, legitimizing viewpoints, generating partial solutions, broadening support,
identifying zones of opposition and indifference, changing perceived risks, structuring needed
flexibilities, putting forward trail concepts, creating pockets of commitment, eliminating
undesired options, crystallizing focus and consensus, managing coalitions, and finally
formalizing agreed-upon commitments.
Figure 1-7 lists some of these tactics in the sequence of their potential use in the change
process. Quinn's approach incorporates an appreciation of the likely impact upon people and
the culture, and pragmatically searches for a better way of doing things once the decision to
change has been made.