Saturday 19 November 2016

OPERATIONALIZING STRATEGY TO CREATE ALIGNMENT



OPERATIONALIZING STRATEGY TO CREATE ALIGNMENT

Operationalizing Strategy is about creating alignment: Vision + Skills + Incentives + Resources + Action Plan = Change

Operationalizing Strategy is more than vision and values. It is about making things happen through people, process and technology. Too often a strategy is a dusty document in the draw of senior management which is reviewed annually rather than lived daily.

In these circumstances an organization can drift either to fall behind the expectations and needs of its customers, employees and stakeholders or become hostage to enterprising and entrepreneurial managers with pet projects and personal agendas.

Often an organization can survive or even thrive such circumstance but inevitably there will come a time when either the deviation needs to be remedied by crisis driven transformation or accepted as the new direction with the vestiges of the old finally jettisoned in an acceptance of the new  emergent strategy.

For some emergent strategy is about being agile and responsible but for others it is chaotic and exhausting. Good Management and Leadership would be better to guide the organization in the right direction than offer remedy and counselling for each error, false-start, or dead-end.

Operationalizing Strategy is therefore about creating alignment: Vision + Skills + Incentives + Resources + Action Plan = Change

NO-VISION + Skills + Incentives + Resources + Action Plan = Confusion
Vision + NO-SKILLS + Incentives + Resources + Action Plan = Anxiety
Vision + Skills + NO INCENTIVES + Resources + Action Plan = Slow-Progress
Vision + Skills + Incentives + NO-RESOUCES + Action Plan = Frustration
Vision + Skills + Incentives + Resources + NO-PLAN = False-Starts

Operationalizing Strategy is about leadership and management; the former setting the direction with the latter ensuring we stay on course.

Using sailing as a metaphor; leadership is about plotting the course, and might include taking the helm but management is about watching the compass and trimming the sails. There is an overlap of responsibility toward the direction and motivation of the crew which must be a shared responsibility with a common voice and a collective purpose.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an AMPG Qualified Change Practitioner, a PRINCE2 Project Manager, with an MBA in Management Consultancy. Past projects have included the incorporation of Ports of Jersey and Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI and NatWest. He is a tutor/lecturer for the Chartered Management Institute and  a past curator for TEDx (TEDTalks)

Web: http://www. AdaptConsultingCompany.com
Twitter: @AdaptCCompany

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