Week 92 (18.1.09)

Learn (The Challenge of Strategic Management -
Exploring Corporate Strategy by Gerry Johnson & Kevan Scholes)

• Success was the result of the strategies pursued by the firms and the effective development of those strategies by management.
• Baden-Fuller and Stopford concluded that the success they observed arose from managers' abilities in identifying strategies for growth, typically on an international scale, 'stretching' organisational capabilities and embedding strategic thinking throughout the organisation, not just at the top.

1. To a much greater extent, strategic management is concerned with complexity arising out of ambiguous and non-routine situations with organisation-wide rather than operational-specific implications. This is a major challenge for managers who are used to managing the resources they control on a day-to-day basis. It can be a particular problem because of the background of managers who may have been trained, perhaps over many years, to undertake operational tasks and to take operational responsibility.
2. To develop an ability as a strategist therefore requires that the manager is able to conceptualise key strategic issues. Most aspects of management involve:

• Analysis and planning required to gather and organise information about the situation or issue faced.
• Action to undertake tasks: this may vary from action in the form of arranging for analysis to take place, to action in terms of ensuring that change takes place.
• Conceptualisation of problems and choices: this is not simply a matter of analysis, but has to do with making sense of the situation.

3. A major challenge for the strategic manager is to help develop an organisation which is able simultaneously to meet stakeholder expectations while building capabilities and competencies which provide bases of internal efficiency, as well as meeting the needs of customers better than competitors within a changing environment.

Unlearn
The success of an organisation is not about just the product it has, learning from this, it is the strength of a team context in rejuvenation of the business through strategic managers.

Relearn

As a leader, i will continue to aspire my manager, or influence them to build their strategic thinking through developing their capability to take an overview, to conceive of the whole rather than just parts of the situation facing an organisation. There is a need to build my team's capability in strategic response and action.