BOOK EXTRACT
one-size-fits-all approach to management that suits all situations. For us, the best management practice is the one that is ‘best fit’ – or aligns – to the unique context of the enterprise concerned, and every enterprise is different. In other words, what is best depends solely upon requirements and the context in which it is being applied. By implication, there is no standard recipe, instruction manual or efficient short cut for how best to strategise and organise for success in every case. This presents a considerable management challenge. Managers must exercise careful judgement in choosing, from a vast array of options, what might fit best in any given situation, based upon the best available information, and mindful of the consequences of choosing poorly. The quality of decision-making by leaders becomes a major factor – perhaps the most important one – in explaining why some enterprises do well, and many others do poorly. The academic world is prone to fads and fashions like any other social field, and especially so in business and management. Contingency theory used to be all the rage, but it has fallen out of favour in published research and Universalists have taken the hill, for now at least. And yet, in my work with companies, most managers subscribe to contingency theory intuitively, even if they do not use scholarly lingo. They understand that choosing how to align all the moving parts of their enterprise, including its business strategy and the way in which it is organised, to best support the fulfilment of its long-term purpose – its raison d’être – is a critical performance condition, regardless of whether it is a company, a government agency or a charity. Their challenge always is to better understand their increasingly complex world and make better forward-looking decisions. This is the essence of what I refer to as strategic alignment. Many managers fail to meet this challenge. Due to performance pressure, being time-poor or even just lacking awareness and understanding of the issues at hand, they become tempted or blinded by the siren song of best practice prescriptions and end up adopting strategies, practices and systems that, while they might work elsewhere, are a poor fit for their own purposes. Alternatively, in the absence of knowing what is best for the future, managers seek to maintain the status quo and, sooner or later, fall foul of some form of organisational dysfunction, as the operating environment around them changes and they cannot or will not change with it. Or, more operationally, they fail simply to communicate their vision for their strategically aligned enterprise in ways that are meaningful and engaging for InBUSINESS | SPRING 2020
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stakeholders, be they customers, investors or employees. For example, research by Gallup indicates that only about four in ten employees (41%) understand what their company stands for and what makes it different from competitors. In my experience, the best companies are the ones in which their leaders regularly ask critical questions of each other, approach decision-making in a strategic, structured and systematic way, and use evidence to inform and defend their choices to all concerned for maximum engagement. I would argue that many enterprises struggle, and will continue to do so, because their enterprise leaders – by which I mean those tasked with strategic decision-making responsibility – are not strategic in their consideration of alignment as a factor determining their performance and competitiveness. Even today’s successful companies may struggle in future if they lack an effective and practical means of conceptualising the alignment of changing strategic and organisational requirements over time.
This is an extract from Align: A Leadership Blueprint for Aligning Enterprise Purpose, Strategy and Organisation by Johnathan Trevor published by Bloomsbury Books, priced €28.00.
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