Managing change
1. Dawson (2003) ‘A processual approach to understanding change”.
2. Kanter (1985) ‘Power skills in use: corporate entrepreneurs in action’.
3. Balogun and Johnson (2005) ‘From intended strategies to unintended outcomes: the
impact of change recipient sensemaking’, Organization Studies, 26(11): 1573-1601.
Plus further recommended readings…also see e-learning for BBC Cultural Webs Slideshow
Dawson (2003) ‘A processual approach to understanding change”.
A processual approach, reshaping change as an ongoing process
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The processual approach here consists of three main elements, namely: politics,
substance, and context of change within the organisation.
Politics of Change
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The former may involve: senior business leaders or industry groups lobbying
government; the formation of various strategic competitor alliances; governmental
pressure brought to bear on corporate decision-making (for example in the relocation
or rationalization of European business operations); and the influence of overseas
divisions of MNC’s on local operations.
Internal political activity can be in the form of shop-floor negotiations between trade
union representatives and management, between consultants (working within the
organisation) and carious organisational groups, and between and within managerial,
supervisory and operative personnel.
These individuals or groups can influence decision making and the setting of agendas
at critical junctures during the process of organisational change.
The more covert forms of political process may be evident in the legitimization of
certain norms and values that, while often remaining implicit, nevertheless serve to
influence individual and group responses to change.
It is argues that shop-floor resistance is an integral part of political process.
Schlesinger et al. (1992) – essentially the political behaviour of the employees are
generally labelled as signifying resistance to change, and can take many forms and
emerge for many reasons.
Power relations and political processes have been identifies as central in the steering
company change programmes (Buchanan and Badham, 1999).
Context of Change
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The contextual dimension is taken to refer to the past and present external and internal
operating environments as well as the influence of future projections and expectations
on current operating practise.
External factors include change in competitor’s strategies, level of international
competition, government legislation, changing social expectations, technological
innovations, and change in the level of business activity.
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Internal factors: Leavitt’s (1964) four-fold classification of human resources,
administrative structures, technology, and product or service, as well as history and
culture of an organisation.
Substance of Change
1. The scale and scope of change – Small scale discrete change to a more radical large
scale transformation.
2. The defining characteristics of change – The labels attached to change projects and
the actual content of the change in question.
3. The timeframe of change – Long-term nature of changes can indeed go unnoticed if
studies focus on only one critical period in which the process of the workplace
changes.
4. The perceived centrality of change – the extent to which the change is viewed as
being critical to the survival of the organisation.
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These all change over time and overlap with contextual and political elements.
Moreover, knowledge of the substance of change and clarification of what the change
means for a particular organisation can itself become a political process, influenced
by external contextual views and the setting of internal agendas around the
management of change.
The different types of organisational change are shown in Figure 2.2.
In the case of large-scale radical change programmes, senior management
engagement and the commitment of resources is usually required to move from
awareness of the need to change the actual process of mobilizing people in the
planning and implementation of change.
Decisions also have to made with substance to change.
Time-frame involved with some tasks can be relatively short, involving only a quick
analysis of options, or it may instigate a major evaluation exercise requiring a team to
visit other organisations and/or/ suppliers operating in different states and countries.
Choice and decision making is more about power an politics than it is about ‘the best’
options’.
The planning and implementation of change usually brings to the fore a range of
occupational and employee concerns. During the process of change people will
support, resist, and attempt to steer the direction and outcomes of a number of
different tasks, activities and decisions (e.g. General Motors)
In contracts a more top-down approach in Pirelli Cables.
After the implementation of a major change, people continue to reconfigure and adapt
work arrangements, and individual behaviours continue to be influenced by the
culture and history of the factory or office.
The approach thereby views change as a complex ongoing dynamic in which the
politics, substance and context of change all interlock an overlap, and in which our
understanding of the present and expectations for the future can influence our
interpretation of past events, which may in turn shape our experience of change.
A brief history of the processual perspective
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Elger (1975) draws on the work of Woodward (1958) and Burns and Stalker (1961),
and demonstrates how the case studies of Woodward draw attention to an ongoing
process in which management ideology, established rhetoric and political
manoeuvring, all serve to influence change outcomes.
Child’s (19772) concept of strategic choice focuses attention on the dynamics of
change and continuity.
Pettigrew’s (1985) book (The Awakening Giant. Continuity an Change in ICI),
powerfully demonstrates the limitations of theories that view change either as a single
event or as a discrete series of episodes that can be decontextualised.
Highlights the five cases of strategic change: and illustrates how change as a
continuous incremental process (evolutionary) can be interspersed with radical
periods of change (revolutionary).
For Pettrigrew, change and continuity, process and structure, are inextricable linked
(1985).
Pettigrew provides a holistic, contextualist analysis, the approach provides both
multilevel (or vertical) analysis such as external socio-economic influences on
internal group behaviour, and processual (or horizontal) analysis.
For Pettigrew (1985), change creates tension over the existing distribution of
resources through threatening the position of some whilst opening up opportunities
for others.
He also suggests that the political and cultural elements of change are likely to
overlap in the management of meaning, especially in situations where individuals or
groups seek to legitimize their own position and delegitimize others.
In his study of ICI, Pettigrew, demonstrates how change is a continuous process. As
such he usefully illustrates how these strategic change processes are best understood
in context and over time, as continuity is often ‘a good deal easier to see than change;.
For example, insufficient commercial pressure, satisfaction with the status quo, lack
of vision, and the absence of leadership are all identified as contextual factors
constraining change.
Drawing on the work of Kanter (1983), he supports the view that integrative
structures and cultures are broadly facilitative of ‘the process of vision-building,
problem-identifying and acknowledging, information sharing, attention directing,
problem solving, and commitment building which seem to be necessary to create
change.
The dichotomy of Kanter (1983) is a modification of the distinction of organic and
mechanic organisations by Burns and Stalker (1961). They argues that a mechanistic
system is most appropriate for an organisation that uses an unchanging technology
and operates in relatively stable markets. It is characterised by clear hierarchical lines
of authority, precise definitions of job tasks and control responsibilities, a tendency
for vertical interaction, an insistence of loyalty to the concern, and an emphasis on
task skills and local knowledge rather than general knowledge and experience (Burns
and Stalker, 1961).
Conversely, and organic form is deemed most appropriate to changing conditions,
which gives rise to innovation, and the continual willingness to tackle fresh problems
and unforeseen requirements. It is characterised by a network structure of control,
authority, and communication a reliance on expert knowledge for decision making,
the continual redefinition of individuals tasks through interaction with others, and the
spread of commitment to the firm beyond any formal contractual obligations (Burns
and Stalker, 1961).
Discarding the emergent label and reinstating the processual perspective
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Pages 22- 26 seemingly irrelevant
Conclusion
 Preece et al. (1999) on the ‘responses of employees are unpredictable – there are
always new challenges emerging, unintended effects, complaints, commitment and
opposition from all parts of the organisation, and unexpected developments both
within and outside the organisation.
 There are a number of conceptual and methodological dimensions that differentiate
the approach developed in this chapter from other processual studies namely:
1. Competing narratives is used as a central concept. There is no attempt, to reconcile
outliers or different interpretations of change.
2. The concept of multiple histories is deemed important to understanding power plays
and the political processes of change; for examples, the way history is rewritten to fit
the political objectives of differing vested interest groups.
3. The broader concept of the substance of change is used to capture not only the
characteristics of a new technology or the principles of a new management technique
(content), but also the scale and timeframe of change, as well as individual and group
interpretation of the change phenomenon and the perceived centrality of the change.
4. Practical advice and relevance. This approach assumes that practical lessons can be
drawn from processual studies of organisational change on, for example, managaing,
resisting, steering and making send of change.
Kanter (1985) ‘Power skills in use: corporate entrepreneurs in
action’
The Quiet Entrepreneurs
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Corporate entrepreneurs are the people who test limits and create new possibilities for
organisational action by pushing and directing the innovation process.
They can be system builders, loss cutters, socially conscious pioneers, and sensitive
readers of cues about the need for strategy shifts.
They don’t start businesses, they improve them and some of them become heroes in
the public eye! E.g. Tom West (Data General)
The first step in “macrochange” is often the “microchanges” created by numerous
corporate investors.
Power and Innovation
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Any change, no matter how desired or desirable, requires that new agreements be
negotiated and tools for action be found beyond what it takes to do the routine job, to
maintain already established strategies and processes.
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Organisational genius is 10% inspiration and 90% acquisition – acquisition of power
to move beyond a formal job charter and to influence others.
Organisational power derives from supplies of three basic commodities: information,
resources and support.
A great deal of the innovation process consists of searching for power.
Problem Definition: Gathering Information for Saleable Innovations
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Innovators may be visionary and self-directed, but they are only occasionally fully
self-starting.
While gathering information, entrepreneurs can also be “planting seeds”
A second kind of early information need is “political”: information about existing
stakes in the issue and needs of other areas that could be tied to the project to help sell
it and support it.
A third kind of information involves data to demonstrate need and to make a
convincing case that the chosen methos can address the need. Some enterprising
managers conduct formal surveys of users of their area’s output or seek models of
similar approaches.
These kind of information, then, serve dual goals of providing data that can shape
project activities for maximum utility and of creating a tool that can be used to
persuade resource holders to back the project because of the numbers of potential
supporters already identified.
The most salable projects are likely to be trial-able, reversible, divisible, consistent
with sunk costs, concrete, familiar, congruent, with publicity value. But when these
features aren’t present they are unlikely to be in more “radical innovations”.
Where integrative connections help information flow freely and people talk across
organisational boundaries, then more potential entrepreneurs are likely to see
opportunities or to get the information to move beyond an assignment to propose a
new option for the organisation.
Coalition Building: From Cheerleading Press to Blessings from the Top
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Having defined the project, entrepreneurial managers next need to pull in the support
and resources to make it work.
Successful innovations are carried our and produce results in situations where a
number of people from a number of different areas have a chance to make
contributions, as a kind of “check and balance” system on activity that is otherwise
non- routine and therefore not subject to the usual controls.
See Reading for clearing the investment, preselling and making cheerleaders, horse
trading, securing blessings, formalizing coalition (seemingly irrelevant though).
Mobilisation and Completion: Keeping the Action Phase Active
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As the action phase begins, the entrepreneur now switched roles, from composer, solo
artist, or leading actor to “prime mover” or conductor. A large number of additional
players may become involved at this point, when the action of implementing the
innovative idea begins, the stage may be quite crowded, as the project team workers
are collected and forged into an operating entity.
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At Data General the engineers for a new computer were deliberately kept uninformed
about how much work Tom West, the initiator and manager, was doing in keeping the
rest of the company from interfering with the project.
Handling Opposition and Blocking Interference
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The first action-phase task is to handle criticism or opposition that may jeoperdize the
project.
Later oppositions is likely to take the form of directing challenge to specific details of
the plan that is unfolding. But in general, opposition is more likely to arise at the
action phase of the project than at any other.
Number of tactics that innovators used to disarm opponents: waiting it out, wearing
them down, appealing to larger principles, inviting them in, sending emissaries to
smooth the way and plead the case, displaying support, reducing the stakes, warning
the critics…
Managing Momentum: Team Building in Action
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The second action-phase task is maintaining momentum and continuity of effort. Here
“opposition” or “interference” is internal rather than external.
This is why the manager’s team building skills are so important: to ensure enough
feelings of ownership and involvement on the part of all project supporters, actors,
and suppliers that this form of hidden opposition does not occur.
“Secondary Redesign”: Rule Changing, Bending and Breaking
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A third task of corporate entrepreneurs in the action phase is to engage in whatever
“secondary redesign” of systems, structures, or methods is necessary to keep the
project going.
For example, a GE manager whose team was setting up a novel computerises
information bank held weekly team meetings to define tactics; one of the fallouts of
these meetings was a set if new awards and a new performance-appraisal system for
team members and their subordinates.
External Communication: “Managing the Press” and Delivering Promises
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The last set of tasks of the action phase brings the accomplishment full circle. The
project began with the gathering of information, and now it is important to continue to
send information outwards.
And information needs to be widely shared with the team and the coalition as well.
The manager may remind people periodically of what they stand to gain from the
accomplishment, may hold meetings to give concrete feedback to project actors and to
stimulate pride in the project, may make a point of congratulating individual staff on
their efforts, and may invent awards and ceremonies and celebrations.
The extent to which “heroes” emerge, of course, is a function not only of the skills of
the manage and his or her team but also of the quality of the corporate environment:
whether the company makes power tools easily obtainable or less obtainable,
smoothes the way for innovative projects or puts roadblock and obstacles in their
paths. Thus, it is clear that some companies regularly produce both more innovations
and more heroes than others.
Innovation and The Participative/ Collaborative Style
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Instead, corporate entrepreneurs produce innovative achievements by working in
collaborative/participative fashion: persuading much more than ordering, team
building, seeking input from others, showing political sensitivity, willingness to share
rewards and recognition.
A participative/collaborative styles, in short, means that the leader interacts and
listens; it does not imply that the person is Mr. Nice Guy.
Corporate entrepreneurs may empower subordinates, involve them and give them
latitude, but they still set tough standards.
But for innovative accomplishments, participation, collaboration, and persuasion are
necessary, because others control the information, resources and support-the latent
power tools – the entrepreneur needs to acquire and invest in his or her efforts.
From Intended Strategies to Unintended Outcomes: The Impact of
Change Recipient Sense making (Balogun and Johnson)
Introduction
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Organizational change is a context-dependent, unpredictable, non-linear process, in
which intended strategies often lead to unintended outcomes.
Empirical research (e.g. Gouldner, 1954, Mintzberg 1978, Pettigrew 1985) shows that
strategy development and change should be viewed as an emergent process.
Calls to understand better the role of micro organisational social processes and to
acknowledge the impact of those outside the senior management team on strategy
formation (Jarzabkowski 2004), go hand in hand with increasing evidence that middle
managers play a significant role in strategizing (Burgleman 1983).
When organisations attempt to implement change through top-down initiatives middle
managers become key, as they are both recipients and developers of the plans
designed by their seniors (Fenton-O’Creevy 1998).
Calls to recognize people as agents who construct their work environments (for
example Brown, 1998) reinforces the focus of others on interpretations and meanings
within organisations.
The content of new information is mediated for recipients by their existing
knowledge, creating scope for both intended and unintended meanings (Smircich and
Morgan 1982). Structure is both the medium and outcome of action (Giddens 1984),
and all actors have the capability to do otherwise. Control is not one-way since it
involves negotiation between different groups to produce particular outcomes (Coobs
et al. 1992).
The findings show how intended and unintended change become inextricable linked
as implementation progresses.
Change, Cognition and Sense making
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While different authors use different theoretical perspectives to examine these issues,
as we argue in the introduction, the acknowledgement of the need to understand the
agency of those outside the senior management team suggests a need to stuffy their
interpretations of change. Therefore, we adopt a sense making perspective.
Such research is based on the premise that to achieve strategic change it is necessary
for a change to occur in organisational interpretive schemes (Bartunek 1984) – the
fundamental shared assumptions that determine the way the members of an
organisation currently conceive of their organisation and their environmental context
and how they act in different situations.
They act as ‘templates against which members can match organisational experiences
and thus determine what they mean’ (Poole et al, 1989).
While the notion of organisational or group schemata is contentious since cognition is
an individual phenomenon, during times of stability, when existing schemata and, for
example, routines of interaction are not challenged , some level of shared
understanding needs to exist for coordinated activity to occur.
When individuals face change, however, existing cognitions are likely to surface as
individuals experience surprise.
They start to act in a more conscious sense making mode (Brown 2000).
Sense making is primarily a conversational and narrative process involving a variety
of communication genre, both spoken and written, and formal and informal.
Individuals engage in gossip and negotiations, exchange stories, rumours and past
experiences, seek information, and take note of physical representations, or nonverbal signs and signals, like behaviours and actions, to infer and give meaning.
The Case Study
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The purpose of the radical restructuring at Anonco (a pseudonym) was the creation of
an internal market for the provision of services to drive down costs while maintaining
quality and improving service levels. Three new divisions were created from the old
business division – a small Core division and two support divisions, Maintenance and
Services.
The overall vision was for the three divisions to realise the potential of the business,
maintaining high standards of customer supple and services and good industrial
relations. The planned changed also involved redundancies, delayering, new working
practises and a change from a technical, risk-averse culture to a customer-focused
organisation.
The implementation was monitored through the transition phase, which was initially
to last about a year until the contracts came into operation in April 1994).
First-Level Findings
The Development of New Working Relationship between Divisions
The design team developed a: (see reading for more, seemingly irrelevant)
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Designed change goal
New Structure
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Launch Communications
Negative Interpretations of the New Structure
Old Ways of Thinking
Inter-divisional Tensions
Etc. etc.
Second Order Findings: Linking Change Recipient Sense making to Emergent Change
Outcomes
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A key factor is the social processes of interaction occurring between the middle
managers in response to the different change initiatives and events as they try to work
with their peers to establish the new structure, and the interpretations they develop as
a result of this interaction.
Page 1587: for an explanation of the five additional thematic concepts were identified
– social processes of interaction, developing schemata, emergent change outcomes,
old schemata, and sense making triggers. (Irrelevant)
Explaining emergent change outcomes: in tables on pages 1590-1593.
Discussions and Conclusions
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The idea that both anticipated and unanticipated consequences flow from managerial
actions is well accepted, leading to a focus less on their identification and more on
their exploration (Harris and Ogbonna 2002).
What is key, is not that these processes exist, but how during change they mediate
between individuals’ interpretations and the designed change interventions to create
an emergent implementation process in which intentional and unintentional change
are inextricably interlinked.
The second order analysis reveals that change is underpinned by a wide range of
social interactions. We show that emergent change outcomes arise from the
interaction of two types of social processes – vertical processes (between recipients
and senior managers and lateral processes (between middle manages).
In addition the analysis reveals that these social processes are of different types,
varying from highly formal verbal (written and spoken) communications in the form
of documentation and presentations, to much more informal communications in the
form of storytelling and gossip.
While both lateral and vertical processes can include formal communications,
informal verbal exchanges, and non-verbal processes such as behaviours and actions,
our analysis suggests that in top-down processes such as the one studies, many of the
vertical interactions are formal designed interventions, whereas most of the lateral
interactions that occur between middle managers are more informal conversational
and social practises.
Furthermore, the analysis suggests that the greatest amount of middle manager
sensemaking activity occurs through these lateral and largely informal manager
processes in the absence of more senior managers.
Both counteractive and the congruent change consequences therefore emerge out of
the inter-recipient sensemaking processes in ways unforeseen and only indirectly
influenced by senior managers.
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Beer et al. (1990) recommended forcing behaviour change through changes roles,
responsibilities and relationships, to get attitude change (as intended in the change
initiative).
The outcome of an intervention by senior managers in one component cannot
guarantee a corresponding change in another component since the outcome of that
intervention is mediated by informal inter-recipient sensemaking processes.
The senior managers provide a blueprint for change, but the way the blueprint actually
operates is determined by the new behavioural routines created by the change
recipients through their interpretation of and response to senior management change
plans.
On the other hand, we have to acknowledge that managers do need to instigate and
lead change in their organisations. From the perspective presented here, ‘managing’
change is less about directing and controlling and more about facilitating recipient
sensemaking processes to achieve an alignment of interpretation.
Managing change may be more to do with senior management striving to deliver
clarity or purpose, expected outcomes and boundary conditions, and a share
understanding of these, rather than trying to manage the detail.
In addition, the sensemaking perspective encourage us to focus our attention on
processes of interaction between individuals and groups.
Change leaders cannot as such ‘manage’ the lateral processes occurring in their
absence, but they may be able to encourage more of them to take place in their
presence or, in other words, start to exercise more control over contexts of
sensemaking, which would enhance their ability to contribute to these processes.
Collins, D. (1998) Organisational Change: Sociological Perpectives
Under-Socialized Models of Change
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This chapter builds from this concern that many of the accounts of change and much
of the advice which is offered is based upon a limited, mechanistic and overly-rational
view of organisations and of social interaction.
This chapter will argue therefore that many of the accounts which exist as guided to
aid understanding, or to aid the planning of change, are under-socialized in that they
fail to acknowledge change as a social activity, involving people from diverse social
groups who will tend to interpret issues and situations in different, and often quite
divergent ways.
Carnall (1990), observes that the process of change management turns upon the
creativity and vision of managers.
A typical example of schematic change (Collins 1998):
1. Develop strategy
2. Confirm top level support
3. Use project management approach (Identify tasks, assign responsibilities, agree
deadlines, initiate action, monitor, act on problems, close down
4. Communicate results
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This chapter argues that there are key problems with this form of approach.
The term n-step models has been used to express the problems associated with
there under-socialized models.
The Common Features of N-Step Guides
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A ‘rational’ analysis of organisational change
A sequential approach to the planning and management of change
A generally up-beat and prescriptive tone
Rationalism and Change
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Rational approaches to planning and managing change, therefore are approaches
which view the problems of organisational change management as being like
problems of formal logic.
N-step approached to change management, therefore, are rationalist since they
assumes that the outcomes of change are predictable and lend themselves to detailed
management planning (Burnes, 1996).
These models of change may act to boost managers’ feelings of power and self worth,
and in promising to supply the requisite knowledge required to bring about change,
the models may offer managers an avenue for future recognition and promotion
within their own organisations.
A Sequential Model of Change
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The assumption of sequentalism encourage us to assume that the change problem
under consideration has a clearly definable beginning and end.
This assumption assumes that change can analysed as a discrete and linear change of
events untrammelled by previous events or problems.
A Prescription for Change
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These authors tend to claim that through experience or superior insight they have
been able to pierce the problems and difficulti4es of change management, and so
are able to offer a neat and readily applicable framework which captures the
essence of the processes of change and all its attendant problems.
Surely the n-step guided argues against the need for such complex and creative
responses.
Critique: N-step guides for change should be regarded as inadequate accounts of
change since they are entirely ignorant or dismissive, of many crucial features or
organisations and organisational change.
The Nature of Work Organisations
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Edwards (1986) tells us that organisations on a day to day basis are cooperative, yet
he also says employees and employers have divergent interests and orientations. Thus
conflict is built in the employment relationship.
Domination and control, together with co-operation, are integral features of
organisational functioning.
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Organisations are founded upon hierarchy and operate to a large degree through the
exercise of power. It would be wrong then, to portray organisations as purely cooperative structures, since such a portrayal of organisations as un-conditionally
cooperative limits the extent to which we can understand organisation dynamis – the
relations between individuals and groups at work – and so, limits the extent to which
we can grasp the dynamics of organisational change.
The Nature of the Change Process
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Pettigrew’s argument regarding the nature of the change process might be
summarized as follows: while recognizing the need for, and the value of a traditional
narrative account of the change process, accurate accounts of organisational change
require that we are able to view the process of change with all its attendant untidiness,
complexity and political machinations, since the reader cannot be expected to grasp
fully, the complexity of the change process until attention is draw to such complex,
yet fundamental issues.
Next page and half is irrelevant
n-steps 2 reading continued…
Managing Strategies Incrementally
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Because of differences in organisational form, management style, and the content of
individual decisions, no single paradigm holds for all strategic decisions (Quinn,
1977). Quinn’s study suggests that many executives (in large companies) tend to
utilise somewhat similar incremental processes as they manage complex strategy
shifts. Glimpses below
1. Leading the Formal Information System
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Initial sensing of needs for major strategic changes is often described
as ‘something you feel uneasy about’, (Normann, 1977), between the
enterprise’s current posture and some general perception of its future
environment (Mintzberg et al. 1976).
Wrapp (1967) – effective manages establish multiple credible internal
and external sources to obtain objective information about their
enterprise and its surrounding environments.
2. Building Organisational Awareness
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Management processes are rarely directive, instead they are likely to involve
studying, challenging, questioning, listening, talking to creative people outside
ordinary decision channels, generating options, but purposely avoiding
irreversible commitments (Gilmore, 1973).
They assemble objective data to argue against preconceived ideas or blindly
followed past practises.
Executives may want their colleagues to be more knowledgeable about major
issues and help think through ramifications clearly before taking specific
actions.
3. Building Credibility/ Changing Symbols
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Symbols may help managers signal to the organisation that certain types of changes
are coming, even when specific solutions are not yet in hand.
Through word of mouth the informal grapevine can amplify signals of a pending
change.
Organisations need such symbolic moves, or decisions they are regard as symbolic, to
verify the intention of a new strategy or to build credibility behind one in its initial
stages.
4. Legitimizing New Viewpoints
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Strategy development will often involve planned delays, since top managers may
purposely create discussion forums or allow slack time so that their organisations can
talk through threatening issues, work out the implications of new solutions, or gain an
improved information base that permits new options to be evaluated objectively in
comparison with more familiar alternatives.
In many cases, strategic concepts which are at first strongly resisted can gain
acceptance and positive commitment simply by the passage of time and open
discussion of new information.
5. Tactical Shifts and Partial Solutions
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These are typical steps in developing a new overall strategic posture when early
problem resolutions need to be partial, tentative or experimental.
Such programs allow the guiding executive to maintain the enterprises on going
strengths while shifting momentum – at the margin – toward new needs (Cyert and
March, 1963).
6. Broadening Political Support
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Committees, task forces or retreats tend to be favoured mechanisms.
Facilitating smooth implementation, many managers report that interactive consensus
building also improves the quality of the strategic decisions themselves and helps
achieve positive and innovative assistance when things would otherwise go wrong.
7. Consciously Structured Flexibility

Flexibility is essential in dealing with the man ‘unknowables’ in the total
environment.

Others include Trial Balloons and Systematic Waiting, Creating Pockets of
Commitment, Crystallizing focus, Formulizing commitment, continuing dynamics
and mutating consensus, not a linear process…see page 675-677 for more.
Integrating the Strategy
Concentrating on a Key Few Thrusts
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Strategic managers constantly seek to distil out a few (6-10) ‘central themes’ that
draw the firm’s diverse existing activities and new probes into common cause.
Once identified, these help maintain focus and consistency in the strategy and make it
easier to discuss and monitor intended directions.
Unfortunately, dew companies seem to be able to implement such complex planning
systems without generating voluminous paperwork, large planning bureacracies and
undesirable rigidities in the plans themselves.
Coalition Managament
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Top managers operate at a confluence of pressures form stockholders.
In a response to changing pressures and coalitions among these groups, the top
management team continuously forms and reforms its own coalitions aligned around
specific decisions.
People selection and coalition management are the ultimate controls top executives
have in guiding and coordinating their companies’ strategies.
Conclusion
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Many managers are concerned that despite elaborate strategic planning systems,
costly staffs for this purpose, and major commitments, of their own time, their most
elaborate strategies get implemented poorly, if at all.
These executives and their companies have fallen into the classic trap of thinking
about strategy formulation and implementation as separate sequential processes.
Instead, successful managers who operate logically and proactively in an incremental
mode build the seeds of understanding, identity and commitment into the very
processes which create their strategies.
Careful incrementalist allows them to improve the quality of information used in
decisions and deal with the practical politics of change.