Understanding the Dynamics of Strategy Formulation and Implementation
Leaders and managers of governments and public agencies of all sorts face numerous and difficult challenges. The environments of their mandates have become not only increasingly uncertain in recent years but also more tightly interconnected; thus changes anywhere in the system reverberate unpredictably—and often chaotically and dangerously—throughout the society. Consider, for example, the dizzying number of trends and events affecting the world, and particularly Africa, in the past two decades: we are experiencing the emergence of youths as the largest group of poor and unemployed citizens, rural-urban geographic shifts in population; uncertain economic and political climate; major agitation among the populace for affordable education, health care and infrastructure; huge bubbles in stock markets followed by long bear markets and inflations; widening of the gap between the rich and poor; dramatic shifts in federal and state responsibilities and funding priorities; unprecedented debt in both federal and state financial operations; dramatic growth in the use of information technology; the changing nature of work and a redefinition of careers; fears about international and domestic terrorism; and an apparent cascade effect of despondency.
As indicated in the above diagram, a government is in an arena in which individuals and interest groups contest for its attention, resources, and output. Governments that want to do well and be remembered for good and important work must understand the purpose of a stakeholder analysis with the hope of getting a more precise picture of key players in the efforts to respond to significant challenges. Their response may be to do what they have always done, only better; but they may also need to shift their focus and strategies. To respond effectively to changes in their environments, federal, state, and local governments must understand the external and internal contexts within which they find themselves, so that they can develop effective strategies to link the two in such a way that significant and long-lasting public value is created.
Our Solution: A Five-Phase Strategy Model
Our Five-Phase Strategy Model provides a framework for strategic initiatives. Each phase constitutes a piece of the whole in a linear progression. This approach results in a creative, out-of-the-box thinking and focused policy decision making.
Phase I: Identify Strategic Issues
Identifying strategic issues is the heart of the strategy formulation process and it is typically one of the most riveting steps for participants in strategic planning. Virtually every strategic issue involves conflicts: what will be done, why it will be done, how and how much of it will be done, when will it be done, where will it be done, who will do it, and who will be advantaged or disadvantaged by it. These conflicts are typically desirable and even necessary, as they help clarify exactly what the issues are.
Our expertise is helping you identify the fundamental policy questions—the strategic issue agenda—facing your government, parastatal or organization. We do this by helping you ask the right questions because the way these questions are framed can have profound effect on the formulation of ideas for strategic action and a winning coalition, along with the associated decisions that define what you do and why you do it—and therefore on your ability to create public value.
Phase II: Formulate Strategies
Strategy formulation is a purpose-driven (and sometimes purpose-revealing) bridge between the organization and its environment. Good strategies involve creating effective linkages with the organization’s environment, even if the purpose is to change the context. For public organizations, strategy formulation may involve freewheeling creativity and the give-and-take of dialogue and delibration, while formal adoption of strategies and strategic plans can involve political inrigue, tough bargaining, public posturing, and high drama.
While many consultants can help you create a strategy, our expertise is formulating one that can be adopted in politically acceptable, technically and administratively workable, results-oriented, and legally, ethically and morally defensible form. If the goal approach to strategic issues is your preference, we help you develop strategies to achieve these goals; or, if the vision of success approach is your take, we equally develop strategies to help you achieve your vision.
Phase III: Adopt Strategic Plan
Strategic plans can vary a great deal in their form and content. But having one provides a base line for judging strategic performance. A strategic plan also serves a more overtly political purpose: it usually amounts to a treaty among stakeholders, factions, and coalitions. Moreover, in the final court of public opinion, a strategic plan can serve as a communications and public relations document for internal and external audiences.
It is one thing to develop a formal strategic plan, but it is totally a different thing to have shared strategic thinking, acting, and learning. Organizations function on the basis of commitment and mind set. We help you formulate and adopt effective strategies to link your policy or organization with its environment. This is an action-oriented enterprise. You’ll identify desirable strategies for addressing particularly troublesome issues, reduce risks, ease implementation, break projects into doable steps, quickly make change seem real to people, release resource flows and human energy, empower people, encourage participation, boost people’s confidence and commitment, provide immediate rewards, and preserve gains.
Phase IV: Establish Effective Vision for the Future
The vision of success is more important as a guide to implementing strategy than it is to formulating it. Although many—perhaps most—public institutions and NGOs have developed clear and useful mission statements, fewer have a clear, succinct, and useful vision of success. Part of the reason is that a fully developed vision, though it includes mission, goes well beyond mission. A mission outlines the institutional purpose; a vision goes on to describe how the institution should look when it is working extremely well in relation to its environment and key stakeholders.
SK Optimal Solutions Konsult collaborates with your executive team in the strategic planning process to develop a clear and succinct description of what your institution (collaboration or community) should look like as it successfully implements its strategies, achieves its full potential, and creates significant and lasting public value. We call this your institution’s vision of success.
Phase V: Implement Strategies and Plans
Creating a strategic plan can produce significant value—especially in terms of building intellectual, human, social, political, and civic capital—but that is not enough. Developing effective programs, projects, action plans, budgets, and implementation processes will bring life to the strategies and create more tangible and intangible value for the institution and its stakeholders as mandates are then met and the mission fulfilled.
Implementation is when strategic initiatives result in added public value through a reasonably smooth and rapid achievement of the institution’s goals and heightened stakeholder satisfaction. To do this effectively, we help you transition from strategic planning to strategic management by incorporating adopted strategies throughout the relevant system. This way, the enacted strategies and strategic plans become not only persuasive, but constitutive of community, character, and culture.
Expected Outcomes: Breaking the Cycle of Decision-Making Paralysis
SK Optimal Solutions Konsult Strategy Formulation and Implementation allows your institution to:
- Assure that institutionalized capabilities remain responsive to real needs and problems
- Resolve lingering problems that have hindered previous strategies and their implementation
- Channel institutional strengths and resources to facilitate lasting public value into the future
- Improve institutional knowledge and collaborate across all levels of the establishment
- Develop the energy, will, and ideas necessary to revise existing strategies, address important unresolved strategic issues, or undertake a full-blown strategic planning exercise
Who Should Attend
- Experienced public officials and managers, heads of parastatals, career civil servants, leaders of NGOs, and team leaders who are required to formulate strategies.
- Valuable for all personnel involved in the strategic planning process and who can impact the successful implementation of strategies within their organization.