Reassessing and Revising Strategies and Plans John T Shliapa Graduate Business Program, Anna Maria College Bus 701-Strategic Thinking Nicholas Thayer Although developing a strategic plan and the strategies to implement them is a long task at hand and may offer a sense of relief when it is accomplished, the work is hardly done. Once an organization has agreed to both a strategic plan and its implementation strategies, there comes the extensive task of reassessing and revising their strategies and plans. Although proper planning can identify a vast majority of issues and obstacles along the way, no one can truly identify everything that could possibly go wrong. Therefore, it is essential for an organization to continue to reevaluate and modify their strategies and plans. As an athletic trainer, we were taught in school to adapt and overcome to a any situation that could be thrown our way in the sports medicine field. An organization must be able to adapt and overcome obstacles and hurdles that may prevent them from achieving their goals and being successful. The only way to adapt and overcome is to modify your strategy to overcome the barrier. The same approaches to developing your strategic plan can be used in order to determine the best course of action to minimize the risk of failure and maximize potential success. In fact, the ability to reassess and revise a strategic plan may be as important as creating the strategic plan to begin with. There are typically four main reasons why strategies may fail for an organization. The first reason a strategy may falter is simply because an organization does not have enough resources dedicated to that particular strategy. The strategy may be sound but if there are not enough resources to support its implementation, it cannot achieve success. The resources I reference can mean a multitude of things. It can be strictly financial, involving only capital, or it can be the amount of time devoted to the strategy or it could simply mean the manpower devoted to the specific project. It is possible to create a perfect strategy to deal with issues, but if you are unable to devote the proper resources to it, it will never be accomplished. During the development of the strategic plan, the goal is to foresee all obstacles and problems that an organization may encounter during the implementation of the strategic plan. In reality the ability foresee every single problem is not realistic. So another major reason why strategies may fail is the fact that problems may change. Certain strategies work for certain problems so if the problems change, your strategies to overcome them must also change. Failure to adapt to the different challenges and obstacles will result in failure of the any strategic plan. During the implementation of a new strategic plan and possibly a vast majority of new policies and procedures, inconcsistencies throughout an organization can lead to strategic failure. Lack of precise communication regarding the strategic plan and new policies can create confusion among those within the organization. Confusion breeds chaos. An organization with confusion among its employees and stakeholders regarding its strategies is bound to have inefficiencies and inabilities to succeed with its strategies. Without clear cut direction and an understood vision, any strategic plan is doomed from the start. The last reason an organizational strategy may fail is due to the ever-evolving political climate. The political environment refers to not only the federal, state and local governments but also refers to key stakeholders, managers, decision makers that may have previously been supportive of the new strategies. New mandates can dictate a shift in strategy and the loss of support from previous leaders within the organization can also hinder the implementation of new strategies. As stated in previous papers, the success of implementing a new strategic plan relies on garnering a large amount of support from those involved in the organization. If leaders within the organization have left or have been replaced, it is possible that the support for the new strategic plan left with them. Due to the prevalence of strategy failures in executing and implementing strategic plans, many organizations rely on a strategic management system (SMS). This system allows them the opportunity to “fix” their strategies and processes. The SMS can help measure the cost effectiveness and performance of strategies and it can also determine the effectiveness of newly implemented systems. Because of that, the term strategic management systems is often interchanged with performance management systems or results management systems. Using the SMS can be a beneficial tool to help initiate new strategies or modify existing strategies. By able to track performance, organizations are able to identify areas that may be inefficient or expendable depending on their date analysis. By removing inefficient or unnecessary procedures or processes the organization as whole can improve. I can compare this to old saying that a herd is only as strong as its weakest buffalo. If an organization is able to identify and then remove its “weak link”, it can become stronger as a whole. An organization must develop a strategic management system to help increase possibility of success of their strategic plan. Bryson describes 7 types of system management systems (SMS). They are as follows: Integrated units of management approaches Strategic issues management approaches Contract approaches Collaboration approaches Portfolio management approaches Goal of benchmark approaches Hybrid approaches The integrated unit of management approach involves developing multiple strategies from a combination of levels and functions from both internal and external sources. Multiple stakeholders and decision makers from different parts of the organization should be involved with this approach. External stakeholders and member of the community must also be involved in this approach. Feedback and development of ideas from multiple sources from multiple entities is used in order to measure progress of the implementation of the strategic plans. This approach should be done on regular intervals that the organization feels as though is the most beneficial; weekly, monthly, biannually, annually, etc. in order to ensure change within the organization. Among the most popular strategic management systems is the strategic issues management approach. It involves guidance on strategic issues coming down from the leaders of the organization. Once the overall guidance has been given, the leaders of the organization select specific issues that they feel warrant their attention. Those issues are then strategically discussed developing alternatives and those alternatives are then discussed again with the top discussion makers. Once the alternatives have been presented, development of strategic plans can commence. The contract approach is used for organizations where there is a shared power model. This is typically seen in dispersement of federal funds to non profit organizations and in school districts. Within this model, there is a “center” that is lead to develop strategic objectives for the organization. The center sometimes called the principal determines the relationship with the organizational vendors, stakeholders, etc. through the use of contracts. The contract outlines the responsiblitileis of each party, performance expectations and renegotiating rights and timelines. The collaboration approach is also frequently used in shared power organizations. The collaboration approach is typically used when no one entity can take full responsilbity of the strategic management. Without one figurehead, multiple organizations must work together to address issues that may affect strategic plans that will effect more than organization at the same time. The amount of collaboration between organizations varies at many levels and with each specific issues dependent on what is needed for success solution of the issues as hand. When there are multiple organizations involved, the amount of resources shared is depenedent on when both sides feel is an agreeable outcome in which can not be obtained solely by an individual organization. This approach can be summed up by the old adage, “the sum of the parts is greater than the individual pieces”. A more freeflowing and general management approach is the goal or benchmark approach. This approach has been used to give organizations a general idea of goals, measures to which they can aspire to. The onus of this management system lies upon the managers and leaders of the everyday employees. They have been given the goals to achieve but it is up to the workforce to accomplish those goals by implementing proper processes. Developing a management strategy is a positive event, but how to you maintain your strategy? Without the ability to continue with your strategy to through completion of the process, the implementation of your strategic plan will indeed fail. Bryson offers several guidelines for strategy maintenance. His first guideline is essentially not to “rock the boat”. If you are trying to maintain your strategies, overhauling the entire system is not going to be beneficial. If you are to maintain current strategies it is important to gather valuable information from your community and other stakeholders. Your stakeholders are key to keeping support of an organization’s current initiatives and when seeking to maintain success, support of external stakeholders and community members is vital. Lastly, Bryson suggest investing in distinctive qualities of the company. An organization must continually adapt to look towards the future. Organizations must seek the ability to differentiate itself from others. Diverisfying its resources into new and thrilling opportunities can help to not only maintain but strategies but help to proliferate them. If an organization is looking for change and looking to adapt significantly new strategies it is important for the organizations to make significant changes to its existing infrastructure. In order to initiate mjoar change an organization must “make a splash”. Little ripples are not going to signal a change in philosophy, nor are they going to command the attention of the stakeholders, employees or community. Change is can be created from challenging already established systems. Allow leaders to challenge policies and procedures to spur new ideas and create new strategies from those ideas. An organization must be prepared that strategy succession is more likely to more difficult than was the development and adoption of the previous strategy. Many people are uncomfortable with change and considering they may have already conceded change with the first adopted policy, getting them to “buy in” to newer policy can be difficult. An organization must also realize that they hired people in their current positions for a reason. The need to lean on their top personnel and stakeholders to help facilitate change. If the leaders of your organization have pledged support for an organizational shift in strategy, the lower tiers will be more likely to also back new proposals. If your key stakeholders and key decision makers are not involved nor excited about the strategic policies coming down, it will be difficult to garner support from others. When making significant strategy change, it may be necessary for strategy termination. It is an extreme form of strategy change where the previous strategy is essentially abolished and a new strategy is developed using a completely different framework of ideas. Once again, the support of top leaders is necessary as the termination of previous strategy can leave many previous stakeholders and beneficiaries with a negative perspective on the new strategy. Organizations must also be prepared to reorganize their workforce in terms of cutbacks. Inefficient processes and departments are a drain on the organization therefore it may be wise for the organization to “trim the fat” and reduce the amount of workforce. Realignment of departments may also provide positive results for organization to be more able to measure performance within certain processes.
