Strategic focus and effective communication
Corporate business consultants are discovering that effective management requires a continuous focus on the strategic objectives of the organisation. Click here to find out what this means for change
In a recent blog posting on HBR Nick Tassler wrote about three myths he has found in strategic thinking. I thought these ideas have just as much relevance for Managing Change. These three myths help to focus on doing the right things to make a difference with the resources available — sound familiar? Yet look around you, are you really focussed on making a difference or is there some ‘make work’ in there as well? My recent experience at meetings and consulting with a local authority have again awoken my awareness of the pervasive Parkinson’s Law.
In the previous blog I described the book
, The Blunders of our Governments by Prof. Anthony King and Sir Ivor Crewe which describes a series of major blunders by our governments. The third part of their book covers the systemic failures (as opposed to the human failures) which have contributed to significant waste and failure to change. In this blog I will discuss these systemic failures.
In particular I will re-cast the failures into the frame of organisational change. Click here to see what the failures are
I have written in the past about the need for change in an organisation being driven by strategic change outside. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review on Transient Advantage by Rita Gunther McGrath (one of my favourite management authors) shows that there are internal drivers for change which are just as powerful. This is particularly relevant for Fast Growing businesses.
McGrath identifies 5 stages of growth and decline that an entrepreneurial business goes through to seek and exploit a competitive advantage. She argues that a sustainable advantage (one that once secured is there for ever) is a fallacy and that competitive advantage comes and goes as markets and technology change. To continue to be successful a business should cycle through a number of competitive advantages by repeating her stages of growth and decline.