Implementation ofstrategyis the process through which a chosen

strategy is put into action. It involves the design and management

of systems to achieve the best integration of people, structure,
processes and resources in achieving organizational objectives.

Implementation of Strategy affects an organization from top to

bottom, it affects all the functional and divisional areas of
business.
Institutionalization of strategy
Setting Proper Organizational Climate
Developing Appropriate Operating Plans
Developing Appropriate Organization Structures
Review of Implemented Strategy

Culture- differentiates good organizations

from bad ones.

Shared
Shared
Shared
Shared

things
sayings
actions
feelings

COMPOSITION

Beliefs
Values

OF CULTURE:

culture as a strength can also be a

weakness

Characteristics of weak culture:

Many subcultures
Few values & behavioral norms
Rare traditions
Lack of sense of commitment, loyalty, identity
Politicized environment
Hostility to change
Characteristics of strong culture:
Explicit set of values & principles
Considerable time devoted by the management
for communication
Values shared widely across the organization

 Factors

contributing for strong culture:

A founder or an Influential leader who

established desired values
Sincere and dedicated commitment to
operate business of the organization
according to these desired values
Genuine concern for the well-being of the
organization's stake holders

Approaches to create strategy supportive

culture:
1) To

ignore corporate culture

2) To adapt strategy implementation to suit
corporate culture
3) To change corporate culture to suit strategy
requirements
4) To change strategy to fit the corporate
culture

Businesses today facechange on all fronts economic, regulatory,

competitive, customer, and access to resources. Consequently, every
company is adjusting its strategy and that implies change. The success of
your strategy depends on your people will they be able to implement the
strategy and achieve the goals?

Strategic leadership provides the vision, direction, the purpose for growth,
and context for the success of the corporation. It also initiates "outsidethe-box" thinking to generate future growth. Strategic leadership is not
about micromanagingbusiness strategies. Rather, it provides the umbrella
under which businesses devise appropriate strategies andcreate value.

If you are a leader at any level, your people look to you for guidance on
what needs to be done, and how. The key requirements of leaders are to:
Set the strategy
Communicate the strategy
Implement the strategy through people
Get results

Strategic leadership entails the ability to anticipate, envision, maintain

flexibility, and empower others to create strategic change as necessary.

A manager with strategic leadership skills exhibits the ability to guide

the company through the new competitive landscape by influencing the
behavior, thoughts, and feelings of co-workers, managing thought of
others and successfully dealing with rapid, complex change and
uncertainty.

Strategic leaders are CEO, Board of Directors, Top Management Teams,

Divisional General Managers. They must be able to deal with the diverse
and cognitive complex competitive situations that are characteristic of
todays competitive situation.

All corporate culture include a political

component, so all organizations are political in
nature.

Organizational members bring with them their

likes and dislikes, views and opinions, prejudices
and inclinations, when they enter into
organization.

Managerial behavior cannot be purely rational

and, therefore, an understanding is to be
acquired of how corporate politics works and how
the use of power is to be made for effective
strategic management.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Power is defined as the ability to influence others and

corporate politics is the carrying out of activities not
prescribed by policies for the purpose of influencing the
distribution of advantages within the organization.
Managers derive power within an organization from five
types of sources.
Reward power arises from the ability of managers to reward
positive outcomes
Coercive power arises from the ability of managers to
panelize negative outcomes
Legitimate power arises from the ability of managers to use
position to influence behavior
Referent power arises from the ability of managers to create
liking among subordinates due to charisma or personality
Expert power arises from the managers competence,
knowledge and expertise that is acknowledged by others

The nature of organization itself creates the

conditions for power and politics to manifest. For
instance, the manner in which the organization
structure is created leads to power and politics.

Since material rewards, promotions, prestige and ego

are involved, each organization more or less is
affected by corporate politics.

The exercise of power and use of politics has two

connotations: negative and positive.

When viewed negatively, power and politics are

means for domination and manipulation. They entail
self-serving behavior involving deception and
dishonesty for achieving individual or group interest,
leading to conflict and disharmony in the
organization.

When taken positively, power and politics

are means for achieving organizational
objectives. The use of power and politics is
the means to resolve conflicts and bridge
genuine differences of opinions through a
process of negotiations and seeking
collaboration.

Political considerations and use of power,

therefore, are a part of behavioral
implementation by strategists.

Strategy implementation is basically about

change management. Therefore corporate
politics and use of power have a definite role to
play in strategy implementation.

Politics and power affect the way a strategy is

formulated and implemented. A manager
cannot effectively formulate and implement
strategy without being perceptive about
company politics.

Political consideration affect which type of

objectives take precedence over others and
what strategy the firm has to choose.

Generally, there is more politics in implementing strategy

than in formulating it. In implementation, politics and power
affect a number of elements. The nature of strategy
implementation requires consensus building, managing
coalitions and creating commitments.

Few examples, resource allocation is ultimately a rationalpolitical decision, which results in the sharing of scares
resources among different organizational units, structure
result in the distribution of authority and responsibility and
decides how power will be exercised, and corporate culture
is itself partly, the outcome of the use of politics and power.

Having an understanding of the use of politics and power,

strategist can perform the tasks of strategic management
better. Indeed, having astute political skill is a definite and
even a necessary, asset for a general manager to have in
orchestrating the whole strategic process .

The typical approaches to a strategic use of

power and politics may involve one or more of
the tactics mentioned below.
First of all, to accept the inevitability of politics being
there in the organization.
Understand how an organizations power structure
works, who yields real power and influence and who
are the individuals and groups whose opinions carry
weight and cannot be disregarded.
To be sensitive and alert to political signals
emanating from different part of the organization.

 To know when to tread softly and rely on coalition

management and consensus-building and when to push
through decisions and actions by a selective and judicious
use of Machiavellian methods.
To lead strategy and not to dictate it, being patient till the
consensus emerge.
To let most negative decisions emerge as a group
consensus rather than as a directive from the top
To gather support for acceptable proposals and let the
unaccepted ideas die a natural death
To reward organizational commitment and penalize
negative or indifferent attitude
To practice principled politics and use openness and
honesty to counter unprincipled politics

At a higher level, Nepalese companies are

plagued with politics between associations
and federations of business and industry,
public versus private sector, small versus
large sector, multinational versus local firms,
and technocrats versus bureaucrats.

In such condition, strategists have to be aware

of not only internal political consideration but
also the politics and power play present in
other organization, particularly government
departments and ministries, with whom they
have to deal with on a continual basis.

PERSONAL VALUES AND BUSINESS ETHICS

Values
Personal values refer to a conception of what an
individual or groups regard as desirable.
A value is a view of life and a judgment of what is
desirable, which is very much a part of persons
personality and a groups morale.
Personal values imbibed from parents, teachers,
elders and an individual grows, values are adapted and
refined in light of new knowledge and experience.
Within organization, values are imparted by founder
entrepreneur or a dominated CEO and these remain in
some form for a long time after a person is not there.

17

Business ethics

In the discipline of management studies, business

ethics is the study of how personal moral norms
apply to activities and goals of a commercial
enterprise.
It is not a separate moral standard, but the study
of how the business context poses its own unique
problems for the moral person who acts as the
agent of this system.
A major task of leadership is to inculcate
personal values and impart a sense of business
ethics to the organizational members. At one end,
values and ethics shape the corporate culture and
dictate the way how politics and power will be
used, and at the other end, clarify the social

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Importance of values and ethics

Increased awareness around the world about ethical
practices in business.
International organizations like world bank and IMF
concerned whether aid provided is used for intended
purpose and not fritterd away by corrupt Govt officials.
Transparency international brings out annual rating of
countries on an index of corruption that serves as
guideline for foreign investors and international donor
agencies.
Corruption in industry is a major by-product of
degradation of values and ethics, which is also related
to discretionary powers of regulatory system designed
and administered by an unholy alliance of bureaucrats
and politicians.
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Values, ethics and strategy

The intentions of individuals, that is, their purity of
mind as decision makers within an organization
matter a lot in strategic management.
There has to be a right connection between values,
ethics and strategy.
Business ethics is considered to integrate core
values such as honesty, trust, respect, fairness into
strategic management, policy making, practicing
management and decision making. It has been
percieved as a set of a legally driven codes, in the
form of a list of dos and donts for the company
executives, which have to be complied with.
Business ethics is being identified as a major source of
competitive advantage.

20

Values are personal in nature ( e.g. belief in providing

customer satisfaction and being a good paymaster ) while
ethics is a generalised value system (e.g. avoiding
discrimination in recruitment and adopting fair business
practices )
business ethics can provide the general guidelines based
on which strategic management can operate.
Values, however, offer alternatives to choose from.
Organizations derive values and ethics from their
corporate culture.
Corporate culture is the outcome of shared assumption
that individual members of the organisations have.
The right set of values and code of ethics have to be
formulated by an organization on the basis of founding
philosophy, cherished traditions, norms of ethical
behavior and social requirements.

Strategic planning provides answer to what

organization might & can do
Personal values determines what
organization wants to do
Social responsibility relates to what
organization ought to do
So social responsibility should be made
explicit and meaningful

Generally top management decides on

major decisions taken in CSR
So alignment of social responsiveness with
strategic management is necessary
Hence role of strategists will be affected by
social responsiveness