Aspects of Strategy and Strategic Implementation

When most people are asked to define the act of “Strategy”, they usually say something similar to it being about tactics or about getting from here to there.

Being “Strategic” depends a lot on how one defines one's terms. One definition of 'Strategy' is 'a long-term plan for success'. Therefore 'Strategic' thinking is the ability to think in terms of plans for success. Contemporary usage of the terms however implies a 'high-level', ‘more encompassing’, 'more important' view, or an approach that makes fundamental changes to some core assumptions. It's not a matter of what is 'right or wrong' here, but what is meant by the question as that informs the response.

If one asks whether it is possible for managers to 'think about success’ or be taught 'how to think about success', then this is possible as evidenced by every business school that teaches strategy. Part of the challenge then is to define 'success', as this is not universally agreed.

Is 'success' that which management defines or subjectively determines as 'success'; or is it some independent measure that management strives to achieve, such a shareholder objective as interpreted by the Board?

If one's intent in asking the initial questions is to determine whether people can be taught techniques for thinking out of the box or laterally, then the qualified answer is yes. They can be taught techniques, but their comfort and spontaneity with the process relies on their right or left-brain tendencies. A person with a preference and comfort with, for example, right-brain (creative) thinking is more likely to have thoughts or ideas that challenge conventional assumptions than someone who is predominantly left-brain. Each can be taught techniques that enable them to cope with their 'non-preferred' hemisphere, but they are unlikely to have total comfort there. Having said that, the most powerful and successful leaders appear to have comfort in both hemispheres.

Furthermore, an organisation that has promoted all its senior managers from the 'shop-floor', say for example, from a large manufacturing operation, is likely to have most of those managers exhibiting left-brain tendencies (i.e. eye for detail, predictability, etc.) The problem occurs when they are asked to start thinking creatively as part of their management responsibilities, which they may find either hard to do or find to be stress-inducing.

1.?Is strategic thinking a mindset or a process??The act of establishing a 'path' to a corporation's objectives is a process. The act of creatively developing a successful outcome may require a right-brain approach, thus may be 'mindset' dependent, subject to the context and the nature of the objective and the ingenuity required for the path. Conversely, many strategies are both predictable and common, and may not require high levels of ingenuity.

2.?Is it innate or learned??Right and left-brain tendencies are innate and represent a continuum along which all people are located. People at the extreme ends of the continuum generally have discomfort with the other end if asked to perform duties requiring those specific skills. It’s worth noting that your right or left tendencies relate to your?preferences?and not your?abilities. As an example, your preference might be to work on creative projects, but when required to do so, you are able to work in a high-detail environment – generally however, not for very long periods.

3.?How can individuals develop this expertise??Processes can be taught (and are taught in most business programs.) Innate tendencies can be complemented by teaching an understanding of those innate tendencies and their impacts, and the way to offset stress or discomfort in oneself.

4.?What distinguishes top strategic thinkers from other executives??My experience indicates that firstly, 'top performers' within an organisation have the ability and comfort of working effectively in the right-brain (creative) space while understanding the left-brain (implementation) implications of those creative concepts. Secondly, they recognise the right-brain or left-brain of people and the organisation and sculpt their communications to suit those hemispheric preferences.

5.?How should organisations accomplish this??Develop an understanding of the right/left brain character of the organisation and its people. In particular, understand when stress and discomfort is induced when people are asked to perform outside their 'preference zone' for a significant period.

6.?What do individual executives need to do??Reflect on their own hemispheric preferences and understand the preference of their superiors and subordinates. Contemplate the degree that sculpting communications and expectations to suit the target will have in achieving one's objectives. Similarly, reflect on one's own preferences and consider how that has affected your own way of working and communicating. Has it helped or hindered what you're trying to achieve?

One of the many characteristics of effective leaders is that they can operate in both brain-hemispheres even though they may have a personal preference for one over the other. For example, they can be active in creating and defining a future state of the organisation while being equally comfortable in developing or supervising the detailed implementation plan to deliver that future state.

Building The Strategy

Neither strategy formulation nor strategy implementation are difficult if you know what you're doing.

It’s rare that a strategy's business case will be enough to win the support needed through a document or presentation by itself. Many organisations are inherently political. This is often a cultural trait of the organisation often caused by fear, territorial issues and the threat of losing authority or job, and status as a cultural characteristic as well as a result of certain types of strategies.

Don’t under-estimate the power and dysfunctional influence of this type of culture. Therefore, in order to minimise the impacts of this issue, it’s recommended that you:

• Work your stakeholders: take the time and effort to meet with all important members of your various stakeholder groups, to talk through what is proposed, what is the likely impact on them, and what is expected of them before the strategy is implemented, during implementation and after implementation.
• Capture and record their questions, issues and their concerns. Ensure that their concerns are identified (anonymously if possible) in the business case and discuss the manner you propose to satisfy those concerns. Ask the interviewees, for their suggested solutions. If you can 'live with' their solution to important issues and problems within the strategy, it will be harder for them to withhold approval or cooperation. The written record will protect you (and the strategy) from individuals who claim they "didn’t say that" at some point in the future.
• Ensure that you spend time explaining the benefits of the strategy to them and their area of responsibility. If they don’t know or aren't convinced of the benefits, then why would they support the strategy?
• Don’t leave each stakeholder conversation without knowing what it will take to get their support for the strategy.

You may also encounter 'gate-keepers' through whom you need to navigate the strategy, and who don’t have a real direct interest in the strategy or who are not directly affected by it. You still need to meet with them and secure their approval too. This is usually done by explaining the benefits to them or their responsibility area from the successful implementation of the strategy.

What You Have To Get Right

A Strategic Plan for an organisation is generally a plan for the entire organisation and for some time in the future.

What is obvious is that if you were already operating “at the vision point” of the plan, then there would not be a need for a “Strategic Plan” because you would already be there. Therefore, implied in the Strategic Plan is that the future objective represents a different context to the present one - in other words, change. That the plan will impact some parts of the organisation is obvious, but which parts and with what impacts?

The bigger and more different the vision is from the present, then the bigger the impact on the organisation.

There are 12 Pivot-Points in every organisation that must be conquered to satisfy that organisation’s strategic (or other) objectives. Failure in any of these Pivot-Points will compromise objectives and may even cause failure.

This way of thinking, and this methodology, is unique in the business world, is validated by refereed research, and by many (hundreds) of satisfied clients over a quarter of a century.

Applying The 12 Pivot-Point Approach

We apply a powerful diagnostic to the organisation to identify the issues that require remedy in business systems and the inter-relationships between the different parts of the organisation. Those issues fall into one or more of the 12 core elements of every organisation.

We then bring expertise through our subject experts to those elements to help you navigate your specific issues in a complex world. Like you, we have learned from decades of experience and research that there are no islands in organisations. When things happen, or don’t happen, there are impacts up and down the organisation.

Therefore, to deliver a strategy, to fix issues, to undertake change, or to take advantage of opportunities, one needs to understand what happens up and down the organisation in order to successfully deliver objectives.

There are?two broad ways clients engage: they either?have a very specific issue?they need resolved, or they?have a number of issues?and aren’t sure where or how to start.

We have a way of looking at organisations that understands how they think, how they operate, and how to deliver successful outcomes that last.

The following diagram illustrates the 12 Pivot Points and their relationship with each other.

The 12 Pivot Points we focus on

1. Organisational?purpose?(either shareholder objectives, or charter or constitutional objectives). Describes why the organisation exists.
2. Organisation’s required?outcomes?(KPOs, priorities, and strategic direction). Converts broad purpose statements into measurable performance metrics.
3. Market?and Operating environments. Identifies the operating environments from which all performance metrics must be achieved.
4. Products and Services?(including manufacturing, procurement and product and service-related systems). Identifies the things that customers will buy in the markets you’ve chosen to satisfy performance metrics.
5. Channels?and distribution. Determines how you will get your products and services to their customers.
6. Support?systems. Determines how you will support the customers and intermediaries in all markets to provide an efficient and profitable service.
7. Selling and Communication. Determines how you will approach, offer and secure customer purchase and the messages you will use.
8. Human Resources?and culture. Determines the number and types of people you need, and the culture that will engender the mindsets required.
9. I.T. systems, procedures and processes. Determines the systems needed to make it all work.
10. Management?including structure. Determines how you will manage and structure the business.
11. Finance?and other outcomes ($, #, %). The decisions above are modelled and compared to performance metrics.
12. Formal?Plans. When #11 = #2, then formal plans are created that explain and instruct the organisation.

If you have questions or wish to explore this, please contact me on [email protected]