Strategy - decision making V implementation
It has been a little while since I have added to this blog, mainly due to business and keeping my more regular blog updated. I may import these blogs into my main blog over time, we'll see.......
It is quite an interesting area of strategy, just how connected or disconnected are the processes of decision making (working out what to do) and implementation (actually doing it). In the real world of course they are just two parts of ultimately the same question/problem and viewing them as separate doesn't seem on the surface that helpful. But.......
If a strategy fails to deliver the intended outcomes is it a fault of the strategy or the implementation? Even if a strategy has been fully implemented it may have been done in a sub standard manner.
It creates this paradoxical position for the creation of strategy. Do we limit the position we want to be in the future by our known (or assumed) ability to get there or do we set the "right" strategy knowing that we haven't got the organisation to get there? And that raises a number of other questions about what are we actually trying to achieve bearing in mind that an organisation doesn't exist separate from the people inside it. No point in developing a rocket that can take people to Mars if it can't keep them alive for the whole journey.........
Strategy, as Mintzberg eloquently argues, is more a craft than a science and often it is the experienced managers and strategists who develop strategies that feel right. They make sense for the organisation and they are within the capabilities of the organisation, or at least not a bridge to far as some form of stretch is often positive for mobilising resources.
Like all matters in the strategy sphere, there isn't black and white and often even a huge debate about which shades of grey we are actually talking about!!!!!!
It is quite an interesting area of strategy, just how connected or disconnected are the processes of decision making (working out what to do) and implementation (actually doing it). In the real world of course they are just two parts of ultimately the same question/problem and viewing them as separate doesn't seem on the surface that helpful. But.......
If a strategy fails to deliver the intended outcomes is it a fault of the strategy or the implementation? Even if a strategy has been fully implemented it may have been done in a sub standard manner.
It creates this paradoxical position for the creation of strategy. Do we limit the position we want to be in the future by our known (or assumed) ability to get there or do we set the "right" strategy knowing that we haven't got the organisation to get there? And that raises a number of other questions about what are we actually trying to achieve bearing in mind that an organisation doesn't exist separate from the people inside it. No point in developing a rocket that can take people to Mars if it can't keep them alive for the whole journey.........
Strategy, as Mintzberg eloquently argues, is more a craft than a science and often it is the experienced managers and strategists who develop strategies that feel right. They make sense for the organisation and they are within the capabilities of the organisation, or at least not a bridge to far as some form of stretch is often positive for mobilising resources.
Like all matters in the strategy sphere, there isn't black and white and often even a huge debate about which shades of grey we are actually talking about!!!!!!
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