MODULE 6 – LEADING AND IMPLEMENTING STRATEGY
Identify & discuss the key challenges that confront the strategy implementation process
* It needs a supportive environment & has pressures of changing external environment.
* Reasons for failure or under-achievement:
* Transforming strategic thinking into action
* Implementation treated as an add-on & a lower-level employee task.
* Strategy achieved best when those in charge of implementation also involved in strategic analysis & formulation process from the start.
* Managers who implement are usually too busy with everyday running of operations to become involved in planning process or may be excluded.
* Failing the 3Cs of communication, commitment & coordination
* Poor communication & lack of commitment & inability to manage change effectively. Poor or vague strategy. Lack of buy-in & ownership from key manager & employees.
* Lack of coordination or alignment between an organisation’s strategy & its functional units, processes & systems.
* Lack of a model, inadequate information sharing, unclear lines of responsibility & accountability, unsupportive power structure.
* Paralysis by analysis
* Too much focus on analysis & formulation, relaxing on way resources are allocated & way in which operational decisions are made. Leaders trained to formulate not implement.
* Important not to combine financial & budgetary processes with strategic intent & direction.
* Risk that strategic planning will stifle creativity & innovation.
* Politics & resistance
* Political pressures pose a threat. Once strategy documented it’s more accessible to rivals.
* 2 forces. Rational (explicit)– openness, communication, self-analysis. Political (implicit) – internal rivalry, empire protecting, keeping information, selective communication, caution.
* Written plans may only be a partial...