Implementation of strategy is the process through which a chosen

strategy is put into action. It involves the design and management

of systems to achieve the best integration of people, structure,

processes and resources in achieving organizational objectives.

Implementation of Strategy affects an organization from top to

bottom, it affects all the functional and divisional areas of business.

◦ Institutionalization of strategy

◦ Setting Proper Organizational Climate

◦ Developing Appropriate Operating Plans

◦ Developing Appropriate Organization Structures

◦ Review of Implemented Strategy

Culture- differentiates good organizations from bad ones.◦ Shared things◦ Shared sayings◦ Shared actions◦ Shared feelings

COMPOSITION OF CULTURE:◦ Beliefs ◦ Values

“culture as a strength can also be a weakness”

Characteristics of weak culture: Many subcultures Few values & behavioral norms Rare traditions Lack of sense of commitment, loyalty, identity Politicized environment Hostility to change

Characteristics of strong culture: Explicit set of values & principles Considerable time devoted by the management

for communication Values shared widely across the organization

Factors contributing for strong culture:

A founder or an Influential leader who established desired values

Sincere and dedicated commitment to operate business of the organization according to these desired values

Genuine concern for the well-being of the organization's stake holders

Approaches to create strategy supportive culture:

1)To ignore corporate culture2)To adapt strategy implementation to suit

corporate culture3)To change corporate culture to suit strategy

requirements4)To change strategy to fit the corporate

culture

Businesses today face change on all fronts– economic, regulatory, competitive, customer, and access to resources. Consequently, every company is adjusting its strategy and that implies change. The success of your strategy depends on your people – will they be able to implement the strategy and achieve the goals?

Strategic leadership provides the vision, direction, the purpose for growth, and context for the success of the corporation. It also initiates "outside-the-box" thinking to generate future growth. Strategic leadership is not about micromanaging business strategies. Rather, it provides the umbrella under which businesses devise appropriate strategies and create value.

If you are a leader at any level, your people look to you for guidance on what needs to be done, and how. The key requirements of leaders are to:◦ Set the strategy◦ Communicate the strategy◦ Implement the strategy through people◦ Get results

Strategic leadership entails the ability to anticipate, envision, maintain

flexibility, and empower others to create strategic change as necessary.

A manager with strategic leadership skills exhibits the ability to guide

the company through the new competitive landscape by influencing the

behavior, thoughts, and feelings of co-workers, managing thought of

others and successfully dealing with rapid, complex change and

uncertainty.

Strategic leaders are CEO, Board of Directors, Top Management Teams,

Divisional General Managers. They must be able to deal with the

diverse and cognitive complex competitive situations that are

characteristic of today’s competitive situation.

All corporate culture include a political component, so all organizations are political in nature.

Organizational members bring with them their likes and dislikes, views and opinions, prejudices and inclinations, when they enter into organization.

Managerial behavior cannot be purely rational and, therefore, an understanding is to be acquired of how corporate politics works and how the use of power is to be made for effective strategic management.

Power is defined as ‘the ability to influence others’ and corporate politics is ‘the carrying out of activities not prescribed by policies for the purpose of influencing the distribution of advantages within the organization.

Managers derive power within an organization from five types of sources.

1. Reward power arises from the ability of managers to reward positive outcomes

2. Coercive power arises from the ability of managers to panelize negative outcomes

3. Legitimate power arises from the ability of managers to use position to influence behavior

4. Referent power arises from the ability of managers to create liking among subordinates due to charisma or personality

5. Expert power arises from the managers’ competence, knowledge and expertise that is acknowledged by others

The nature of organization itself creates the conditions for power and politics to manifest. For instance, the manner in which the organization structure is created leads to power and politics.

Since material rewards, promotions, prestige and ego are involved, each organization more or less is affected by corporate politics.

The exercise of power and use of politics has two

connotations: negative and positive.

When viewed negatively, power and politics are means for domination and manipulation. They entail self-serving behavior involving deception and dishonesty for achieving individual or group interest, leading to conflict and disharmony in the organization.

When taken positively, power and politics are means for achieving organizational objectives. The use of power and politics is the means to resolve conflicts and bridge genuine differences of opinions through a process of negotiations and seeking collaboration.

Political considerations and use of power, therefore, are a part of behavioral implementation by strategists.

Strategy implementation is basically about change management. Therefore corporate politics and use of power have a definite role to play in strategy implementation.

Politics and power affect the way a strategy is formulated and implemented. A manager cannot effectively formulate and implement strategy without being perceptive about company politics.

Political consideration affect which type of objectives take precedence over others and what strategy the firm has to choose.

Generally, there is more politics in implementing strategy than in formulating it. In implementation, politics and power affect a number of elements. The nature of strategy implementation requires consensus building, managing coalitions and creating commitments.

Few examples, resource allocation is ultimately a rational- political decision, which results in the sharing of scares resources among different organizational units, structure result in the distribution of authority and responsibility and decides how power will be exercised, and corporate culture is itself partly, the outcome of the use of politics and power.

Having an understanding of the use of politics and power, strategist can perform the tasks of strategic management better. ‘Indeed, having astute political skill is a definite and even a necessary, asset for a general manager to have in orchestrating the whole strategic process.

The typical approaches to a strategic use of power and politics may involve one or more of the tactics mentioned below.

First of all, to accept the inevitability of politics being there in the organization.

Understand how an organization’s power structure works, who yields real power and influence and who are the individuals and groups whose opinions carry weight and cannot be disregarded.

To be sensitive and alert to political signals emanating from different part of the organization.

To know when to tread softly and rely on coalition management and consensus-building and when to push through decisions and actions by a selective and judicious use of ‘Machiavellian’ methods.

To lead strategy and not to dictate it, being patient till the consensus emerge.

To let most negative decisions emerge as a group consensus rather than as a directive from the top

To gather support for acceptable proposals and let the unaccepted ideas die a natural death

To reward organizational commitment and penalize negative or indifferent attitude

To practice principled politics and use openness and honesty to counter unprincipled politics

At a higher level, Nepalese companies are plagued with politics between associations and federations of business and industry, public versus private sector, small versus large sector, multinational versus local firms, and technocrats versus bureaucrats.

In such condition, strategists have to be

aware of not only internal political consideration but also the politics and power play present in other organization, particularly government departments and ministries, with whom they have to deal with on a continual basis.

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PERSONAL VALUES AND BUSINESS ETHICS

Values

Personal values refer to a conception of what an individual or groups regard as desirable.

A value is a view of life and a judgment of what is desirable, which is very much a part of person’s personality and a groups morale.

Personal values imbibed from parents, teachers, elders and an individual grows, values are adapted and refined in light of new knowledge and experience.

Within organization, values are imparted by founder entrepreneur or a dominated CEO and these remain in some form for a long time after a person is not there.

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Business ethics

In the discipline of management studies, business ethics is the study of how personal moral norms apply to activities and goals of a commercial enterprise.

It is not a separate moral standard, but the study of how the business context poses its own unique problems for the moral person who acts as the agent of this system.

A major task of leadership is to inculcate personal values and impart a sense of business ethics to the organizational members. At one end, values and ethics shape the corporate culture and dictate the way how politics and power will be used, and at the other end, clarify the social responsibilities of the organization.

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Importance of values and ethics

Increased awareness around the world about ethical practices in business.

International organizations like world bank and IMF concerned whether aid provided is used for intended purpose and not fritterd away by corrupt Govt officials.

Transparency international brings out annual rating of countries on an index of corruption that serves as guideline for foreign investors and international donor agencies.

Corruption in industry is a major by-product of degradation of values and ethics, which is also related to discretionary powers of regulatory system designed and administered by an unholy alliance of bureaucrats and politicians.

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Values, ethics and strategy

The intentions of individuals, that is, their “purity of mind” as decision makers within an organization matter a lot in strategic management.

There has to be a right connection between values, ethics and strategy.

Business ethics is considered to integrate core values such as honesty, trust, respect, fairness into strategic management, policy making, practicing management and decision making. It has been percieved as a set of a legally driven codes, in the form of a list of do’s and don’ts for the company executives, which have to be complied with.

Business ethics is being identified as a major source of competitive advantage.

Values are personal in nature ( e.g. belief in providing customer satisfaction and being a good paymaster ) while ethics is a generalised value system (e.g. avoiding discrimination in recruitment and adopting fair business practices )

business ethics can provide the general guidelines based on which strategic management can operate.

Values, however, offer alternatives to choose from.

Organizations derive values and ethics from their corporate culture.

Corporate culture is the outcome of shared assumption that individual members of the organisations have.

The right set of values and code of ethics have to be formulated by an organization on the basis of founding philosophy, cherished traditions, norms of ethical behavior and social requirements.

Strategic planning provides answer to what organization “might & can do”

Personal values determines what organization “wants to do”

Social responsibility relates to what organization “ ought to do”

So social responsibility should be made explicit and meaningful

Generally top management decides on major decisions taken in CSR

So alignment of social responsiveness with strategic management is necessary

Hence role of strategists will be affected by social responsiveness