<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Gary</st1:place></st1:city>,
Thanks for condensing my post. I think you did an excellent job. I also think we are both on the same track. Unfortunately, the research I've read seems to indicate that this track is infrequently taken by most organizations. This was one of the huge differentiators that Jim Collin's shared from his two research studies. Obviously this means that the majority of organizations aren't creating a foundation of Purpose, Values, and Goals and setting long-term strategies. The question then is, "why not?" Is it because most managers aren't being taught this? Or perhaps is it because they don't have enough tools or the right tools for doing it? Both? Something else?
If b-schools want to make a difference in creating a future where managers don't go down the path which some recently went down and had a hand in brining about our current economic situation, then perhaps b-schools need to answer these questions, and maybe even ask some additional questions. I think it is these discussions that might prove valuable to hold on this list.
Make a Great Day!
Gary Lear, President & CEO
Author of the soon to be released
Leadership Lessons From the Medicine Wheel: The Seven Elements of High Performance
Resource Development Systems LLC
Managing the Human Side of Business (sm)
gelear@rds-net.com www.ResourceDevelopmentSystems.com
(c) 2009 permission denied to use this post in any other forum or in any way other than on the discussion list that it was originally posted.
From: <st1:personname w:st="on">Management Education and Development Discussion</st1:personname> [mailto:MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Gary Lundquist
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 4:58 PM
To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Further concern arising from the crisis and implications for strategic management
Gary Lear presents a powerful paradigm; one I adopted over two decades ago when I lost an INC 500 software company because two rounds of venture capitalists in two years, and each demanded that we do it their way. 14 months from second investment, we were bankrupt.
Gary Lear's words, highly condensed.
>>> The best organizations create their own future. They first decide what they want to Be, then figure out what they need to Do.
>>> "Being" provides long term focus for strategy. Purpose and values set context for goals to achieve purpose.
>>> Sense of being enables better decisions on how to change and survive.
>>> Strategy focuses on long term goals (20+ years). Initiatives derive from strategy.
>>> Long term plans derive from being. Annual plans by themselves lead to unmanageable businesses.
My language (another <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Gary</st1:place></st1:city>)
>>> Lear's "Being" is Strategic Identity (market context) plus Integrated Character (corporate context).
>>> Goals, Identity, and Culture are long term desired states. Foundational.
>>> Goals are long term; objectives are near term. Strategies enable pursuit of foundation; tactics enable adjustments to changing external realities.
>>> Integrated Strategies use initiatives to drive operations toward the foundation.
>>> Objectives and tactics enable ongoing focus in spite of accelerating change in Human culture.
>>> "Unchanging foundations" cannot exist. Everything changes, everywhere, all of the time. No matter the source of lore, change is the single most important context of business and life.
>>> Thus the key is a stable foundation that evolves smoothly (as opposed to erratic behaviors driven by annual planning)
In yet another language, 22 of 25 elements of a corporate gestalt define stability; only 2 truly drive change - objectives and strategies/tactics. On the other hand, all 25 will evolve over time including some values, perhaps excepting the mission. (for the list, respond with "gestalt" in the subject line.)
The dynamics of modern markets seem to create a sense of urgency to adapt. In fact, dynamic change requires a carefully crafted foundation first, then adaptation only when required. Urgency typically reflects an incomplete paradigm or an ineffective process for identity, culture, and/or strategy.
<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Gary</st1:place></st1:city>
...........................................
Gary Lundquist
Director@InnoSearchColorado.com
<st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Colorado</st1:place></st1:state> Resources for Innovation
303-840-9929
...........................................
GaryL@Market-Engineering.com
Innovation of Business and
the Business of Innovation™
-----Original Message-----
From: <st1:personname w:st="on">Management Education and Development Discussion</st1:personname> [mailto:MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Gary Lear
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 12:02 PM
To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Further concern arising from the crisis and implications for strategic management
Kim,
I have been watching this discussion for awhile, and I very much appreciate your continued focus on what management education can offer students other than a simple (and perhaps simplistic?) focus on personal values. I have spent close to 30 years working in or working with leaders in the Criminal Justice System, and I can say with full confidence that our prisons and community supervised caseloads are filled with good people who have done bad things. We have very few truly evil people. Rather, we have systems and contexts in which people have to make decisions and take actions. Focusing on personal values, while not totally a waste of time, doesn't help students create the systems and cultures in their organizations where better decisions can be made.
However, in your recent post you asked about "how good strategic management would have helped companies anticipate, prepare for, and cope with the crisis?" I am not sure that these three things (anticipate, prepare, cope) are explicitly connected, and I'm not sure if strategic management needs to focus on all three. First, while some anticipation for future events is necessary for speedy action, in order to look out far into the future we'd need some sort of crystal ball, which I don't think is possible (at least not in the more scientific world of management). Rather, preparing the organization to have a solid core while being able to adapt to an ever changing world (the last two of your three) would be far more realistic.
In my initial 3 year review of the literature (which I'm constantly updating and thank you for your recent link), what I learned is that the best organizations aren't basing their strategy on anticipating and reacting to crisis situations. Rather, they create their own reality and their own future. They are highly focused on what their organization is all about for the long-term, the goals they want to accomplish, and then they figure out how to accomplish this given various constraints in their internal and external enviornments. In other words, the organizations first know what they need to Be, then they figure out what they need to Do. From my experience, the current teaching of strategy has this backwards, and has entirely too much focus on what the organization needs to be Doing, rather than what it needs to Be.
With a focus on Being, we automatically provide a long-term focus for the organization's strategy. We determine the Purpose and Values of the organization first, and then we discover the Goals that will allow the organization to achieve that Purpose. You mentioned a few posts ago that the Balanced Scorecard doesn't necessarily provide an organization with the ability to predict crises, but, as I shared above, it isn't so much the predictive value that having a set of long-term, multi-focused goals provides, as it is about providing a long-term and balanced focus. This helps create stability and clarity in the organization, which, I believe, is more important than being able to try to guess what will happen in the future.
One of the core beliefs of most American Indian philosophies is that life is filled with constant change. It is only through our grounding in our foundational beliefs of who we are and a focus on what we want to achieve that allows us to easily deal with these changes. In other words, it is a sense of Being that allows us to deal with changes and allows us to make better decisions about what we must Do in order to survive.
I believe that this is what strategy is all about: a focus on providing a foundation of Being, of who the organization is and what it is all about (BTW, the Cherokee word for "corporation" is the same word for "organization," "society," and "congregation"); and then a set of goals it wants to achieve so that it can insure the continued existence of the organization. As such, strategy should be long-term focused, with a minimum of a 20 to 30 year focus of unchanging goals. From the strategy comes our initiatives, the actions we will take over the course of 6 months, a year, or what ever time frame we choose or as the situation dictates.
As I shared, what seems to be taught in most b-schools is that strategy is all about the courses of actions (Doing) that organizations will take over the next year. They may say 5 year strategic plan, but if they are redone every year (as most are), then they are really only one year plans. If you stop teaching this and begin teaching management students that strategy is all about creating an unchanging foundation of Being for the organization, I think you will go a long ways in helping to achieve the results that has been discussed on this list over the past few weeks.
Again, I appreciate your bringing us back to this valuable part of the discussion, and I hope that my sharing has helped initiate some new thoughts, ideas, and continued discussion.
Make a Great Day!
Gary Lear, President & CEO
Author of the soon to be released
Leadership Lessons From the Medicine Wheel: The Seven Elements of High Performance
Resource Development Systems LLC
Managing the Human Side of Business (sm)
gelear@rds-net.com www.ResourceDevelopmentSystems.com
(c) 2009 permission denied to use this post in any other forum or in any way other than on the discussion list that it was originally posted.