strategic change and strategic leadership

STRATEGIC CHANGE&

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

Sensei Ndlovu- MBA Director: Kaizen Academy

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STRATEGIC CHANGE & STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

Every day around the world, organizations face changes, such as:

Introducing new products to the market place

Streamlining the organization.

Supposing organizations commenced such changes without making careful plans and implementing change in a meticulous way, the result would not be as favourable.

Strategic change allows organizations to :

Carefully and responsibly make needed changes,

Counting all the efforts and actions that will take place in order to move an organization from its current state towards the desired future state to increase its competitive position and its profitability.

Change is necessary for organizations to continue to flourish and exceed the competition of industry competitors.

MANAGING STRATEGIC CHANGE

Strategic Change

Analysing the causes of change

The strategic change process

Identify areas for change

Identify barriers to change

Use organisational persuasion

Become a learning organisation

The four steps in the process of managing strategic change

There is no easy way to manage strategic change, and no magic pill or simple formula that will work overall in all organizations. Naturally, one would begin with asking questions such as, what change is deemed necessary?

Given that the process of managing strategic change is not an easy one, one of the most important tasks in this process is to understand and manage resistance to change.

The issues that must form part of such process include:

• Identifying the areas of change

• The first and important issue regarding the process of strategic change is to identify the areas in which change has to take place. Change is associated primarily with employees and the tasks that must be performed. Broadly the areas that need to be changed as a result of a new strategy will include technology, operations, administration and people




Managing resistance to strategic change

• Change is about changing people, not organizations.

• Organizations change when the managers and employees change their way of doing business.

• It needs to be recognized that employees are an essential part of the change process.

• The effect of change is that it disrupts normality.

• Employees may feel that their job security is threatened and they may also fear changes to their personal position in the organization




• Power and influence

• Major change requires a shift in the underlying culture of the organization and therefore the attitudes and behaviors of the employees.

• Many change initiatives stumble because they fail to deliver this shift by addressing the cultural and political reality of organizations.

• Persuading organizational members to support the change is a crucial step in strategic change management. Organizational culture plays a significant role as a driver in strategy implementation.


Use organisational persuasion


• The learning organization

• The concept of a learning organization entails the capacity of thinking continually about strategy and creating synergy by sharing knowledge and ideas, and by generating actions that will contribute positively to the whole organization. The idea behind a learning organization is that it is easier to adapt to change if the organization first has the ability to learn.


Become a learning organisation

TYPES OF STRATEGIC CHANGE

Incremental

Revolutionary

Current Organizational

Setting

Adaptation

Reconstruction

Fundamental Changes

Evolution

Revolution

The strategic change issues that an organization may experience

Given the fact that strategic change requires that important issues be taking into account, it is crucial to understand and accept the fact that no two change processes look the same.

No technique ever materializes in the same twice. Each change is different and every organization is different.

• Some of the strategic change issues that must be managed and taken in consideration are:

• Time, Scope, Diversity, Capacity, Readiness and Capability

STRATEGIC ISSUES OF CHANGE

Time:

• How quickly is change needed

• does the organization have time to change?

• Constant innovation ensures that an organization remains aligned to the changing needs of its customers and enables it to be better positioned to respond to emerging changes in the business environment.


Scope:

• What is the scope of change needed?

• Is it dramatic revolutionary change needed, or only a moderate change?

• Survival in this brave new world is no longer based on the size of the bank, but rather on its ability to innovate.


• Diversity:

• What is the level of homogeneity in the organization?

• A heterogeneous workforce can hamper change.

• An organization may recognize that its social media strategy is needed to grow organically.

• An organization may also decided that its actions has to be primarily driven by the needs and demands of its communities and customers rather than its brand or risk managers.


• Capacity

• Does the organization have the capacity in terms of the resources needed to change?

• Many organizations are faced with significant challenges in developing the processes and tools that enable disparate parts of its organization to create access and share a single view of its customers


• Readiness:

• Are the employees ready for the change? This also refers to the level of resistance to change.

• People who have been in the organization for many years are often unwilling to contemplate change.

• Organizations my need to spent time developing tools that will enable incongruent parts of its organization to create access and share a single view of its customers.


• Capability:

• Do the organization’s employees and management have the capabilities to implement change?

• Social media can also enable the organization to collect rich data about its communities and customer

• segments that – in turn– will allow the organization to develop more effective communications and marketing strategies, valuable process improvements and targeted product development that meets the future needs of its key customer segments.


The five building blocks an organization might have

• The organizational structure divides and coordinates work throughout the different functional divisions and work processes. Therefore, there are certain parts of the organization that are responsible for certain duties.

The five building blocks of the organization categorizes employee duties are:

• The operating core, the middle line, the strategic apex, the techno structure and the support staff


The operating core:

• This is the area where the organizations products and services are produced or delivered.

The middle line:

• The organization’s middle line serves as the connection between the strategic apex and the operating core, linking the authority from senior managers’ to first line managers.

• The strategic apex:

• This is the area where the company’s strategies are formulated, responsibility for strategy implementation is carried and supervision is given to ensure that an organization serves its mission statement, social network communities and platforms evolved, driven by the needs and demands of its communities and customers rather than its brand or risk managers.


The techno structure:

• This will include the company’s employees who are concerned with coordinating work by standardizing work processes, outputs and designing the work process of others in the business as a whole. A company might need developed processes and tools that enabled different fragments of its organization to create access and share a single view of its customers.

The support staff:

• Support staff provides assistance for a company outside its normal operational activities.

• Promotions and competitions allow the business to build and reinforce ongoing relationships with both existing and potential customers’ right across the business.


The key actions and responsibilities of strategic leadership at any organization

• Strategic leadership involves the application of strategy in the management of an organization.

• Leaders are very instrumental in ensuring that organizational change establishes and is permanent.

• Leadership is the key component in the strategy implementation process. Ireland, Hoskisson and Hitt (2008) identify five actions and responsibilities of strategic leadership.

• There is a close interaction among these actions and effective strategic leaders will understand how these interactions can be applied in the organization.


Determining the organization’s strategic direction

• Strategic leaders are the most important assets of the organization since their mode of leadership determines the future of the organization and the productivity of the employees.

• Their most important task is not to determine the vision of the organization, but also to develop the strategy to achieve this vision.

• Effectively managing the organization’s resource portfolio

• The management of the organization’s resources is perhaps the most important strategic leadership task. The management of financial resources is obvious, because it will lead to organizational success. The management of human resources is critically important, as well as the integration of these resources. (Lazenby 2014: 348). Strategic leaders implement their leadership roles by training the employees to get things done by combining resources in order to come up with the best results for the organization.


Sustaining an effective organizational culture

• Organizational culture refers to the complex set of ideologies, symbols and core values that are shared throughout the organization and will influence “the way we do things here”. Culture plays a vital role in the development of strategy, but more importantly, perhaps, in the strategic implementation.

Emphasizing ethical practices

• The effectiveness of an organization increases when its operations are based on ethical practices. Ethical practices refer to right and fair behavior when conducting the organization’s business. When top management bases its decision on the desire to do the right thing, and also value honestly, trust and integrity, this has a crucial influence on the organization’s ethical practices. (Lazenby 2014: 349).


Establishing balanced organizational controls.

• Organization control is an important part of the strategy implementation. Control will guide the work in such a way that the performance goals are achieved. Organizational control will help strategic leaders to build their credibility to organization’s stakeholders, because it provides the parameters within which strategy implementation takes place.

Reflection and Conclusion

• Strategic leadership and change management are two very close areas which are very interdependent. Change management can be very frustrating and at times disappointing if it is accompanied by poor leadership. To have proper and effective organization change, it is necessary to employ good management whose source is from the leaders.


strategic change and strategic leadership

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