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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