managing strategic momentum
DESCRIPTION
Strategy is usually viewed as an annual exercise at best, an event that creates a ‘product,' and not a process to be used to actually run the businessTRANSCRIPT
Managing Strategic Momentum
Making Strategy Work
• Strategy is usually viewed as an annual exercise at best, an event that creates a ‘product,' and not a process to be used to actually run the business
• Disconnect between Strategy and Tactics
Achieve the organization’s goals
Managing the strategy to achieve the strategic goals of the organization•Eyes on the Prize
Maintain the Momentum • the actual work to
accomplish specific objectives,
• concerns decision-making processes and their consequences,
• provides the style and culture,
• evaluates strategy performance,
• is a learning process, and
• relies on and initiates new strategic thinking and new periodic strategic planning
• Iterative
The Epic Fail
If the strategy is not actively managed, it will not happen.
Henry Mintzberg
A key to managing strategy is the ability to detect emerging patterns and help them take shape.
Unrealized Strategy
Rational strategies do not always work out as planned..
Emergent Strategy
An organization may end up with a strategy that was quite unexpected as a result of having been “swept away by events” (an emergent strategy)•Be Opportunistic •Carpe Diem
Learning
Leadership, vision, and “feeling our way along” (learning)•Groping
Reformulating and Groping• There is a reformulation of the
strategy during implementation as the organization gains new information and feeds that information back to the formulation process, thus modifying intentions en route.
• The external environment is in a period of flux and strategists are unable to accurately predict conditions; the organization may therefore find itself unable to respond appropriately to a powerful external momentum.
• Organizations in the external environment implementing their own strategies may block a strategic initiative, forcing the activation of a contingency strategy or a period of “groping.”
“Leaders are obligated to provide and maintain momentum”
• Max DePree
The only legitimate work in an organization is work that contributes to the accomplishment of the strategic plan.
It takes the orchestration of management as well as leadership to perpetuate these capabilities into the future.
