BP, like all large organizations, has a formal strategic planning process and a group of highly trained planners working away in Britannic House, its showcase corporate headquarters, in London. Mr. Brennan was only vaguely aware of the planning activities of this group. He certainly wasn't acting on the basis of their recommendations. Perhaps this is your immediate response. A few years ago, it would have been ours.
Strategy is what big companies do from the top down.
Strategy takes time to develop, time to execute, time to evaluate. In a word, it was creative. In the new world, that is strategy. Basic Questions Ronald Coase was in his twenties when he made the most important discovery of his life. He had finished his course work in industrial management at the London School of Economics and decided to spend his last year doing field research.