Strategies and Training
Training and development doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It must reflect the orientation and values of the organization. This orientation comes from the mission, goals, and objectives of the organization.
Before you prepare a training program you should have a look at the organization programme and its components. See Guideline on what to write and how to write a programe
Once the mission, goals, and objectives are decided upon, the organization must analyze
the internal and external environments to see how feasible these are. Based on the analyses, the goals or objectives may
need to be modified. One type of analysis that
is common to many organizations is the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses,
After the analysis, strategic alternatives must be chosen, and one or two alternatives must be implemented. Communication is very important in order that the organization get the full support of the employees. A strategy that is not understood by the employees will usually not be effectively implemented. Indeed, if the employees don’t like the new strategy, they can, (and have) been known to sabotage it.
Any plan that is finally implemented by an organization must be monitored and evaluated to see if the projections made are close to the actual results. If not, a “course correction” must be made to ensure that the final destination is where the organization wants to go. New information could cause a new direction to be plotted.
The training and development function of the organization can act as navigators for the journey, facilitating strategic planning discussions, training managers on various types of analyses, and assisting with data collection and dissemination in helping the organization achieve its goals and objectives.
Creating the organizational Voice and Image
Developing Communication Strategy
7. Distinctive Competencies
(continued)
McDonald’s is very consistent with their
product quality around the world. Even though
they will alter their menu to cater to local tastes and cultures (such as poi and Spam in
Efficiency
is also a distinctive competency. The less you
waste, the more efficient you are.
Wal-Mart is another example of a very efficient organization. Its concept of spoke and hub distribution where a central distribution facility will supply many stores drives down costs so that the final consumer pays less while the organization makes enormous profits. Wal-Mart even makes many suppliers responsible for maintaining minimum stock levels in the stores. This allows Wal-Mart to minimize tracking and inventory holding costs.
As you can see, these
four building blocks – innovation, beneficiary responsiveness, quality, and efficiency
– allow organizations to maximize their returns to the organization, the investors, and
the consumers. These can all form part of a SWOT analysis for any organization.
8. Porter 5-Forces Analysis
One
of the most utilized types of analysis for strategic planning and management is the Porter
5-Forces Model. These five forces are
sector of activity rivalry, substitutes, buyers, suppliers, and potential entrants.
sector of activity characteristics that affect the intensity of rivalry include the number of rivals, market growth, the level of fixed, storage, and switching costs, the level of exit barriers, and the amount of product differentiation.
In Porter's model, substitute products refer to products in other industries. A close substitute product constrains the ability of organizations in an sector of activity to raise prices. For the maker of aluminum cans used in soft drink and beer beverages, the price of aluminum cans is constrained by the price of glass bottles, steel cans, and plastic containers.
In general, when the power of buyers is strong, the relationship to the producing sector of activity is near to a market in which there are many suppliers and few buyers, like in automotive products where there are many suppliers and only a few car organizations.
A producing sector of activity requires raw materials such as labor, components, and other supplies. Suppliers, if powerful, can exert an influence on the producing sector of activity, such as selling its raw materials at a high price, or limiting some of the sector of activity's profits.
Barriers to entry, like patents and brand recognition, are unique characteristics that define the sector of activity. Barriers reduce the rate of entry of new organizations, thus maintaining a level of profits for those already in the sector of activity.
Training and development can help in teaching managers how to use this method
to analyze their sector of activity in order to identify skills gaps that will exist when the
organization decides upon a strategic direction.
9. Strategy Implementation
Once the organization has decided on a strategy, it must implement that strategy. There is an old saying in the Aerospace sector of activity: “there comes a time in the life of the project when it’s necessary to shoot the engineer, and get on with it.”
Many organizations spend a great deal of time developing a strategy, only to see that strategy fail to produce the desired results. Often, these strategies are not flawed; they are simply never implemented. If the requirements of a strategy are in conflict
with an organization's culture, the strategy will fail because the employees will never change their behavior to the extent necessary to implement it.
Strategies need to identify hidden implementation obstacles and deploy programs that will change employee behavior in a way to implement the chosen strategy. Strategic Alignment is accomplished by deploying constructive programs and policies that communicate the organization's purpose and strategy, discover and train missing skills and knowledge, collect essential measurements, set beneficiary-derived unit goals, and that create strategy-driven incentive pay.
If an organization is out of alignment with the requirements of the marketplace and the needs of its employees, it will fail to meet its goals and most everyone in the organization will be frustrated. [www.strategyimplementation.com].
All too often strategy implementation results in lip service to the new strategy without any real change in behavior. In many cases, the executives have trouble communicating with the rest of the organization. Remember that most employees will need to see what’s in it for them to change their behavior!
10.
Strategic Control
Through the entire strategy process, an organization must have controls in place to get the information to those responsible for its analysis and dissemination of that strategy.
Strategic Control is the process of setting targets and monitoring, evaluating and measuring, feedback, and rewarding organizational performance. Management should determine an effective way to measure the important aspects of their organization’s performance to ensure they are achieving superiority with their strategic building blocks. An effective control system needs to be flexible, to supply accurate information, and to have the ability to provide management with feedback in sufficient time to assess its effectiveness. It is extremely important for a manager to choose a control system that will effectively match the organization’s strategy and the structure of the organization. Management must choose a control system that offers the ability to monitor, measure, and evaluate accuracy at all times. To achieve their goals and objectives, an organization will need to make sure there is a link between and among their financial controls, output controls, behavior controls, and organizational culture.
For example, Bank of the West assigns employees to tasks and roles and specifies how these are to be coordinated. Employees and the branch are then analyzed through secret beneficiaries where feedback is given to the manager. The manager then communicates the results to his or her employees on how well they did and where improvements need to be made.
Training and Development (T&D) can assist with this type of information gathering. Based on the results, T&D can help develop, modify, and present courses to reflect the new realities of the market or organization.
Matching the Columns
|
1. Strengths |
A. Creating new products or adding new features to existing ones. |
|
2. Weaknesses |
B. Those things an organization does well. |
3. Opportunities |
C. Support the mission statement. |
|
4. Quality |
D. Trends or events an organization can take an advantage of in reaching its goals and mission. |
|
5. Innovation |
E. Those things keeping an organization from its goals. |
6. Goals |
F. How well one product performs against comparable products in reliability, durability and performance specifications. |
Answers:
1.) B
2.) E
3.) D
4.) F
5.) A
6.) C
Multiple-Choice
1.
Communication is very important in
order that the ______ gets the full support of the ______.
a.
Organization;
employees
b.
Vendors;
employees
c.
Managers;
beneficiaries
d. None
of the above
2.
project/programme purpose strategies are based on
the organization’s _____________.
a.
b.
Goals
c.
Objectives
d.
All of the above
3.
The goals of the organization
should support the _____________.
a. Employees
b. Sales
c.
d. None of the above
4.
________ should have a specific
time frame to be accomplished in and specific numerical targets.
a.
Goals
b.
Objectives
c.
All of the above
d.
None
of the above
5.
________ are trends outside the
control of the organization that it cannot control and that have negative effects.
a. Beliefs
b. Threats
c. Opportunities
d. Weaknesses
6.
_______ reduce the rate of entry
of new organizations, thus maintaining a level of profits for those already in the sector of activity.
a. Barriers
b. Buyers
c. Substitutes
d. None of the above
7.
_______ is about pleasing your
beneficiaries in a timely fashion.
a. beneficiary responsiveness
b. Innovation
c. Quality
d. All of the above
8.
An effective control system needs
to be _____________.
a. Flexible
b. Supply accurate information
c. Provide management with feedback
d. All of the above
Summary
To paraphrase Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the European Theater of Operations in WWII and an American president, “plans are nothing…planning is everything.”
This
module has reviewed the strategic management process, the role of the environment, both
domestic and international, and the role of communication and training in the strategy
process. For an organization’s employees
to be fully committed and working towards the organization’s goals and mission, they must
be informed of them and be trained to implement them.
In this regard, no function can better serve at the focal point as the receiver, facilitator, processor, and distributor of strategic information than the training and development function.
Test
1. ______
Any plan that is finally implemented by
an organization must be monitored and evaluated to see if the projections made are close
to the actual results.
2. ______
project/programme purpose strategies are based on the
organization’s goals, employees, and objectives.
3. ______
The goals of the organization do not
support the mission statement.
4. ______
An organization must have controls in
place to get the information to those responsible for its analysis and dissemination of
that strategy.
5. ______
Strategies need to identify hidden
implementation obstacles and deploy programs that will change employee behavior in a way
to implement the chosen strategy.
6. ______
Once the organization has decided on a
strategy, it must implement that strategy.
7. ______
Substitute products constrain the
ability of organizations in an sector of activity to raise prices.
8. ______
Strengths are organizational factors
that hurt the organization.
9. ______
You can improve the possibility of
reaching your goals by breaking up long-term goals into smaller, short-term objectives.
10.______
How a project/programme purpose reacts to the market should be
based on their management.
Answers:
1.
T
2.
F – mission, goals, and objectives
3.
F – do
4.
T
5.
T
6.
T
7.
T
8.
F – weaknesses
9.
T
10.
F- mission statement
Bibliography
Becker, B. (2001). The HR
Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance. Harvard:
Kaplan, R., & Norton,
D. (1996). The Balanced Scorecard: Translating
Strategy into Action. Harvard:
Niven, P. (2002). Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step: Maximizing Performance
and Maintaining Results.
Glossary
Mission Statement – It is what makes a organization different from its competitors. It is broad enough to encompass the direction of the organization and brief enough o be remembered.
Porter 5-Forces Analysis Model – A utilized type of analysis for strategic planning and management and includes the five forces – sector of activity rivalry, substitutes, buyers, suppliers, and potential entrants.
SWOT – A type of analysis that includes strengths, weaknesses, opportunity, and threats.
Strategic Control – The process of setting targets and monitoring, evaluating and measuring, feedback, and rewarding organizational performances.
Learning Objectives
·
Training and development must reflect the orientation
and values of the organization, which comes from the mission, goals and objectives of the
organization.
·
The training and development function of the
organization can act as navigators for the journey, facilitating strategic planning
discussions, training managers on various types of analysis and assisting with data
collection and dissemination in helping the organization achieve its goals and objectives.
Q&A
1. What is the difference and
similarity between organizational goals and objectives?
The difference is that organizational goals are of relatively long duration and support the organization’s mission; objectives are of short duration and support the organization’s goals. However, they are similar, as objectives and goals should have a specific time frame to be accomplished in and specific numerical targets.
2. What is SWOT and what can it
help an organization do?
The SWOT analysis is a general tool designed to be used in the preliminary stages of decision-making and as a precursor to strategic planning. It helps an organization better utilize its resources and overcome its problems in its quest to achieve its mission.
3. What are the four
effective advantage building blocks?
The four building blocks of effective advantage are innovation, beneficiary responsiveness, quality and efficiency.