STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION
Fountain of Improvement
Factors Affecting successful Strategy Implementation
‘Fountain of improvement' is a strategic management tool to aid the development of systems and processes to implement corporate or organizational strategies. This system reviews all the relevant strategic tools presently in use and modifies them to support the implementation of strategy in the 21st century.
The factors of strategic evaluation tools and techniques have changed and the boundaries shifted to accommodate organizations right across the globe culturally, politically and economically.
It has been observed that the reason of strategy failures in most cases is not due to the inability to design good strategy framework but the ability to successfully implement it to achieve the fundamental purpose of an entity. This is evident in all levels of management, be it corporate or government. One of the main factors is due to lack of shared vision as management is still practicing the top down system in the 21st century. There are other contributing factors as listed below:
Lack of understanding of the vision and the envisaged outcome of a strategy
Lack of concerted dedication by the operational managers and their teams.
Interference by the controlling powers and stakeholders
Lack of education and training
Inherent culture (especially culture specific) Corruption
Nepotism and putting wrong person in charge
As the world has gone global, strategy implementation is no longer a matter to be left for the inept managers, as every failed or wrongly implemented strategy affects many stakeholders. This may be UK designed strategy to be implemented in Africa, Asia, or other European country. As businesses are intertwined right across the world, it is important that homogeneous strategic framework is designed that is compatible for common implementation.
There have been various publications regarding strategy and its implementation. Some of them are theoretical and lacking substance other than repeating what writers had written nearly 100 years ago. All the known strategic tools such as PEST(LE), SWOT(TOWS), 5Forces, are relevant but need to be modified for the 21st century management.
I modified PESTLE (during my MBA International programme 2002) to PERSTICLE. This tool may not make sense in English language but it surely makes sense in business strategy words. PERSTICLE stands for: Political, Economical, Relationship, Social, Technology, Infrastructure, Culture, Legal and Education.
To buttress my points, there are four characters that are added to the known PEST. These are:
Relationship
Infrastructure
Culture
Education
Relationship: The effects of Relationship are huge, be it corporate or government. The relationship an organization has with its funders, suppliers, buyers and the co-operating competitors in terms of research and partnership are beneficial. In terms of governments, it is equally important for governments to have good rapport and co-operation with each other in implementing global strategies.
Infrastructure: Infrastructure has both enabling and disabling effects on organizations and governments. The level of infrastructural developments in any organization or country enables or disables strategy implementation and business development. Lack of infrastructure delays, prevents or thwarts the implementation of any strategy however good it may be.
Culture: Culture is another factor that is taken lightly. Managers do not plan and evaluate culture prior to strategy implementation. The neglect of culture is equally as dangerous as corruption. The culture of any country plays a part in the behaviour of its workforce. In Europe there are different cultures dictating individual behaviour and attitude to work. It is equally so in Africa, Asia and the America. The inherent culture of those charged to implement strategies plays important role. It could be enabling or disabling factor for strategy implementation.
Education: The effect of education is enormous. Good education could be embedded through primary and secondary school up-bringing. Good primary and secondary school education dictate the attitude in adult life. Any country without good established educational system lacks knowledge, as the phrase goes ‘catch them young'. This factor is equally so in organizations. Any organization without well established training and development system lacks knowledge store and core competency. This factor will surely affect their competitive advantage.
This research study is not limited to the above factors. There are other factors to be looked into. Students and businesses have been studying logistics and value chain management. Value chain analysis needs to be modified as well to accommodate those relevant factors necessary to enable strategy implementation. For effective and efficient implementation of strategy in the 21st century, I have designed an environmental framework called VERCKRAD. This factor enables fountain of improvement and it is drawn from Peter Senge's shared vision. VERCKRAD stands for vision, education, resources, co-operation, knowledge, review, attitude and distillation (VERCKRAD). The VERCKRAD factors are as follows:
VISION: Vision which enables direction needs to be shared. It needs to be clarified and it needs to be understood by all those involve in implementing its policies or strategies. It is a level playing field. There should be a leader but the knowledge should be evenly distributed. It should not be hoarded to maintain power and control. It must be shared by all participants for results to be achieved.
EDUCATION: All participants need to be educated on the strategy to be implemented. Education, could be by training, shadowing, mentoring, etc as long as adequate knowledge is imparted on those charged with strategy implementation. There must be complete understanding of the strategy, its system parts and the expected outcome or result.
RESOURCES: There should be adequate resources available for those who are charged to implement strategies. The resources include human and financial. These will also include information and data made available to the strategy participants. The human factor should possess required skills tailored to the task they are assigned to carry out. Though finance factor is important, efficiency should be applied to deploying it to acquire the required skills, knowledge, data, information and other materials needed to achieve the mission.
CO-OPERATION: Like minded people should be put together to accomplish a task. The strategy implementers should be given free hand to work as a team. Management at all levels should avoid exerting influence on the participants unless it is absolutely necessary. This factor must encourage flow of information at every stage of the implementation. Feedback system should be built around the periphery of the systemic tasks. Any thing that may hamper the smooth implementation of the process or activity should be avoided. Though there may be hiccups along the way, any emergent difficulty should be discussed, evaluated and agreed upon before it is tackled. Delay should be avoided for the sake enthusiasm and continuity.
KNOWLEDGE: Knowledge should be adequate. Knowledge should be diverged. Knowledge should be pinpointed or targeted. Systemically, the synergy of diverged knowledge should complement strengths and weaknesses of the implementers. Example, the knowledge of warehousing, processing, engineering, customer services, etc come together as a pool of knowledge to accomplish a mission. Knowledge should attract training, observing, professional advisor, etc. Knowledge should start from the shared vision and participants' contribution on the design stage. Knowledge of communication channels should be advantageous. Knowledge of verifying system is desirable for clarification. Access to the data that informed the decisions at planning stages should be available to the implementers to enable effective communication for interlocking processes.
REVIEW: Review process should be established to make sure that the strategy is being implemented according to plan. The diagram and the data that informed decisions shall be available for review. Alignment is the focus at this stage. The review for alignment will look at the rationale behind to the strategy design, and the result envisaged. All the hallmark of project management should be established so as to ‘check and balance' systemic parts that form the chain of activities leading to the achievement of the objectives of the mission.
Communication system and processes should be at the forefront of the review process. Effective communication system enables feedback. Feedback traces the activities from the current reality to the vision that ignited the strategy formulation. There are two ways of reviewing and managing communication system. These are:
The Interlocking Linear System
The Interlocking Cycle System
The Interlocking Linear System: This system forms a linear chain of activities of interrelated disjointed parts. At the interlocking juncture, there is a manager or someone who is responsible for interlocking the system to ensure that the interlocking system is not obstructed, so as to enable interlacement. There should be an interlacement manager and all the necessary resources should be provided for him or her. This system is akin to a train in motion and the rail track at a junction. Strategic management should learn the intricacy of interlocking train tracks that enable trains to change tracks, to continue on a linear track for its journey. The provision of necessary resources for the interlacement manager attracts condition for responsibility. The condition is ‘curtail ineptitude for success' (CIFS) policy.
CIFS Policy: Many organizations and governments are now managed by less intelligent and experienced personnel who have connections or god fathers. Many intelligent and skillful people are languishing at the middle or bottom of management, implementing strategies they are not properly educated for. This action results in managers losing track midstream of strategy implementation, as they are neither part of the strategy formulation, nor are they properly briefed on the vision that led to the mission they are working to achieve.
CIFS policy is a declaration by an interlacement manager that he or she will be removed, sacked or dismissed from his position if he or she demonstrates ineptitude that delays, prevents, disrupts the activity in motion from being interlaced for smooth continuation of strategy implementation. If shared vision is practiced by organizations, and the strategy implementers are properly trained, there should be no reason why the interlacement manager should not properly manned his position. This policy will remove inefficiency and ineffectiveness from management. One has to take responsibility for his or her action. This policy should be enforced rigorously by government and those responsible for business development and growth.
An example of this is like a train full of commutes or an army commander on a war front. Any silly mistake costs lives that are irretrievable. Every shared vision must build in the CIFS policy to enable success. CIFS challenges political correctness, nepotism, god-fatherism, and my-turn-syndrome that have rendered projects and workforce ineffective and inefficient.
Interlocking Cycle System: This system of review places a manager at the middle and encircled by interlacement supervisors responsible for interlocking the activities. Again there must be shared vision and training to equip the strategy implementers. Every interlacement supervisor is responsible for his junction and making sure that the activities are interlocked to the next activity as planned. CIFS policy for this system removes mediocrity and somnambulism. The manager and his supervisors will subscribe to the same undertaking that empowers management to remove, demote, sack or dismiss the agent concerned. Though there is a collective responsibility, the particular person responsible for the interlacement at any junction should be disciplined. There will be no room for an agent to claim that he or she is misled, unless there is evidence of sabotage or counter instruction by a superior.
ATTITUDE: Attitude as a strategic framework should be addressed properly, taking into consideration the globalization and diversity. Attitude is responsible for failure and success. Culture and motivation are responsible for attitude projection. Cultural values of every strategy implementer need to be evaluated. Different countries and tribes have traceable values and beliefs. For the reason that tribes with different languages have been dumped into one state as a country does not necessarily mean that they possess unique culture. Culture is traceable to languages. There are two relevant cultures at this stage. Inherent culture and adopted culture.
Inherent Culture: This culture is traceable to origin. Inherent culture is traceable to the origin of your grandparents. We must understand that Nature divided people by language. One may not understand the in-depth of a culture without understanding the basics of the culture. The basics of a culture are like Johnson and Schole's paradigm. It is systemic. Culture follows the interlocking chains of events that culminate the values and beliefs. The world has converged together on a global stage, bringing with them their diverse culture. International management must evaluate culture effectively as it makes or mars success. For strategy to be implemented effectively, inherent culture needs to be effectively evaluated.
Adopted Culture: As the name implies, this culture is acquired, depending on how or where one lives or works. It also depends on association, interaction, imposition, or peerage (peer group). This factor is found in corporate culture, introduction of new global product, spreading inherent culture that has spilled beyond its boundary, technology, etc. This factor may enable or disable the implementation of strategy. It was a notion of the West that whatever worked for the implementation of its strategy will work in other parts of the world. In the 21st century this is not so. Yes it is true that some of it has worked in the past and may still work now, there should be a change of attitude to incorporate and evaluate other cultures. Adopted culture sometimes may be confusing at first and there is every need for education and training to blend it in for the implementers. This is the reason for all the factors and vision to be distilled.
DISTILLATION: Distillation is like the review factor but it goes further to look into the strategy, the rationale behind it, and the formation of the strategy, the implementation process and the expected outcome. This looks at the ‘bigger picture'. For the purpose of growth and improvement, the vision and the outcome of corporate strategy should be distilled. The end result of the strategy (negative or positive) should be reviewed by using the Lewin's strategy of unfreeze, process and refreeze. The distillation process is like separating wheat from the chaff to add more values to the fundamental purpose, hence the fountain of improvement.
Distillation system looks into products, prices, customers and competitors. It looks at systems and processes at work. It looks at core competences and what define it. Distillation system differentiates human resource development and human capital development. Distillation factor aligns corporate vision and mission, mission and its objectives, objectives and strategies designed to achieve them, strategies and the CIFS policy, and strategies and the end results.
The aim of distillation is to reinvest for further development and improvement. Distillation works in comparison as Japanese Kaizen that enables continuous improvement. Distillation involves finding out areas where the strategy implementation was challenged and where it excelled expectations so as to learn lessons for further improvement. Distillation factor will encourage retraining, redesigning of organizational structure, reviewing systems and processes, re-evaluating the expected result(s) to see if it is too ambitious. There should be a department, team or the management that involves the strategy designers and the implementers constantly reviewing the system, processes and the skills as required for strategy implementation. This reviewing department will always seek advice from the operations (frontline staff) to find out about their experience on the system and processes designed to aid the implementation, and also what the target group thinks, experiences or feels about the strategy.