Implementing the strategy begins with an authentic participation scheme that transforms the culture, structures and work systems of the company. We must understand the implementation as a continuous process of organizational awakening, of consolidating in the organization a shared strategic sense, a purpose, a habit of giving the best as the only possibility of success. The Implementation brings deeply human attributes to the strategic fact, it is the moment when man becomes the center and everything is decided with his contribution.
Speaking of strategy, curiously, can lead us to remember that definition made by A. de Saint-Exupery regarding the act of loving: “… it is not looking at each other; it is looking together in the same direction ”. That is what strategy in short is about, committing to a shared vision, not wasting effort due to lack of alignment, not being won over by discouragement or petty interests.
We could perhaps err in the technical assessment that we make of a possible scenario or competitive force, perhaps we do not understand with the required speed the importance of a critical factor for the success of a business; None of this will be defining if we have revolutionized our way of thinking and working with the human being, if we are in a position to preserve our dignity and motivation, if we all have collaboration spaces according to the capacities that distinguish us, if we create the processes of necessary adjustment, communication and learning.
This is how M. Godet (2000) recognizes, “a good course is not enough for strategy; it also needs a luggage prepared and motivated for the maneuver…, for the company, the external front and the internal front constitute a single and same strategic segment.
The battle can only be won on both fronts at the same time; or else it gets lost in both ”(Godet, p. 62)
This thinking highlights the importance of the management gap, and equates it with the strategic gap. Good implementation calls for that key resource: human motivation. We do nothing with market opportunities, returning to the idea of the Resource Centered Theory, if we do not have the capacity to take advantage of them.
Implementation must necessarily mobilize the human resource, but this is a sui generis asset, which poses in itself a possible problem because, we know, “we are often reluctant to push to the limit of our capacities, to try or experiment new things. On the contrary, we resist, avoid, rationalize and shore up our self-deception that things are fine the way they are (…) we become self-protective, accusing and suspicious and prefer to withdraw with our false ideas intact than to climb "the cross of the moment »And let our comforting illusions die (…) We resist the loss of what is familiar, the uncertainty that surrounds anything new, the insecurity about who we are when the things with which we have identified no longer define us” (Goldsmith and Cloke1, p. 23-24)
We can, in fact, be frankly anti-strategic, and even spawn countercultures and defeatist cliques that subtly summon discouragement within the organization, nothing to do with the Strategic Attitude so essential in these processes. Implementing the strategy implies exactly overcoming these levels of resistance, the greater the less we participate in its conception and we feel our current position within the company is threatened.
Let's go in search of a basic explanation for so much resistance, we will find three negative and retrograde features present in today's company: Hierarchy, Bureaucracy and Autocracy that, J. Goldsmith and K. Cloke (2001) warn, “put people to sleep and makes it difficult for organizational behavior to be smart, strategic, integrated, and collaborative. Under these conditions it is difficult to take advantage of hidden opportunities, react quickly to changes in the environment, extirpate systemic conflicts, accept new paradigms or solve complex problems ”(Goldsmith and Cloke2, p. 167)
Implementing the strategy begins with an authentic participation scheme that transforms the culture, structures and work systems of the company.
We must understand the implementation of the strategy as a continuous process of organizational awakening.
The team determined to carry forward and spread the strategic vision will have to work hard from now on to obtain significant transformations in everyone's thinking, attitude and behavior. A strategy without this process of revolution on the home front is a dead letter.
The change that is required when we are involved in emerging and establishing ourselves in the market requires us to move from “… criticizing people to supporting their development, from solving problems to learning from them, from giving answers to asking questions, and from enforcing the rules to encourage values… from passivity to participation, from individual responsibility to team responsibility, from managerial decision-making to consensus, from competition to collaboration, and from direction to self-direction ”(Goldsmith and Cloke2, p.167)
There is no doubt about the energizing effect that the strategy receives when we infuse its implementation with this cultural shift in the relationships and ways of working of the company. Implementing is not just or so much about monitoring the achievement of goals, this task taken in isolation ends up being alienating, because we forget an essential truth: the process of walking towards the goal must be meaningful and enjoyable.
Implementing the strategy is then to strengthen in the organization a shared strategic sense, a habit of giving the best as the only possibility of success.
Going from good intentions to obtaining results is the baptism of all philosophy. To this end, I propose to formulate, in addition to the objectives oriented to the external front, concrete objectives that can measure the quality of our implementation.
In this sense, a synthesis of the thinking of J. Goldsmith and K. Cloke (2001) is valid and collect the following set of objectives for an effective implementation of the strategy.
A leadership that puts people and areas of the company in contact and collaborative relationships, that stimulates the ability to act with autonomy and commitment, that educates us in congruence and sufficient authenticity to act out of conviction, that keeps us attentive to any possibility of change and improvement; Such leadership will ensure that the strategy is applied (a high percentage of strategies are never applied) and that it is constantly renewed, promoting successive adjustments of the company to its environment.
The eight proposed objectives will have the value of functioning as an incentive and a source of continuous learning. They can perfectly become feedback indicators within the Learning and Development Perspective of the company's Scorecard, complementing the analysis of the rest of the traditional indicators.
Bibliography
Godet, M.: The Toolbox of Strategic Foresight. GERPA, fourth updated edition. Paris, 2000.
Goldsmith, J. and K. Cloke1: The Art of Waking People Up. Cultivating Authenticity and Awareness at Work. Published by the Coordinating Center for Management Studies (CCED) Ministry of Higher Education. Havana, 2002.
Goldsmith, J. and K. Cloke2: The End of Management… and the Rise of Organizational Democracy. Published by the Coordinating Center for Management Studies (CCED) Ministry of Higher Education. Havana, 2001.
