CHAPTER 8:

Implementing
strategy
 Four steps of strategy implementation
Whereas the previous chapter looked at the content of
formulating strategy, this chapter looks at the process of
implementing strategy. This involves everyone in the
organization, including stakeholders.
 1. Develop operational goals
Operational goals refer to outcomes to be achieved by an
organizational department, workgroup or individual member
 2. Develop operational plans
Operational plans specify what activities will be used to meet a goal,
when they should be accomplished (in light of existing commitments
and constraints), and how the required resources will be acquired

Table 9.3: Checklist of making a plan

1. Describe what steps and actions are necessary to meet your goal(s)
2. Identify factors that may make it difficult to put your plan into action
3. Identify resources needed (e.g. material, time) to perform the activities
4. Ensure the required resources are available (or acquired if necessary)
5. Determine the order, timing, and milestones for each action performed
2. Develop operational plans
 2. Develop operational plans
Standing plans are operational plans for activities that are performed
repeatedly
Standard operating procedures outline specific steps that must be taken when
performing recurring tasks
Policies provide guidelines for making decisions and taking action in various
situations
Rules and regulations are prescribed patterns of behavior that guide work
tasks

Contingency plans describe in advance how managers will respond to

possible future events that could disrupt existing plans
Crises are events that have a major effect on the ability of an organization’s
members to carry on their daily tasks. Managers can:
- do preventive work to avoid or minimize the effect of a crisis.
- prepare for a crisis by assembling information and defining responsibilities
and procedures that will be helpful in a time of crisis.
- contain the crisis by making timely responses
 2. Develop operational plans
Compared to FBL and TBL management, a SET approach tends to:
- involve the most stakeholders in making plans,
- have more emergent and complex plans (due to taking into account
social and ecological factors)
3. Implement and monitor goals and plans
 4. Learn from the strategy in action

Strategic learning refers to using insights from an organization’s

actual strategy to improve its intended strategy

The content school emphasizes the rational-analytic, top-down,

and linear aspects of strategy formulation

The process school, which emphasizes that strategy formulation

and implementation are ongoing and iterative, where one aspect
influences the other
4. Learn from the strategy in action
4. Learn from the strategy in action
 4. Learn from the strategy in action
Structuration theory explains how organizations are created,
maintained and changed by the interplay between their structures and
the actions of their members.
Entrepreneurial implications
(stakeholder maps)
Entrepreneurial implications
(stakeholder maps)
 QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
1. Identify the four steps in implementing strategy. What are the key
differences in the content, orientation, and process of the steps from
an FBL, TBL, and SET view?

2. From an FBL perspective, which of the four steps of implementing

strategy do you think is the most challenging? Answer the same
question from a TBL and from a SET perspective. Are there differences
in your answers for the three types of management? Explain.

3. What are the key similarities and differences between SMART goals
and SMART 2.0 goals?

4. Do you think that developing operational plans plays a more central

role in the FBL, the TBL, or in the SET approach? Which approach is
most difficult to put into practice? Explain your answer.
 QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
5. Briefly describe the differences between the content and process
school analyses of how Honda motorcycles became #1 in the U.S.
market. The process school description, which is based on interviews
with the managers involved, may be the more accurate portrayal of
what actually happened, but do you think the content school
description is more valuable for teaching purposes? Put differently, if
Honda had completed the SWOT analyses and had chosen the correct
strategy prior to entering the U.S. (as consistent with the content
school approach), then it could have saved a lot of time and money
and avoided floundering around after it arrived. On the other hand,
perhaps doing the rational analysis up front would not have resulted in
the successful strategy it eventually developed, and perhaps the real
key to Honda’s success was that managers engaged in strategic
learning during times of floundering. Which approach do you think
should be taught in business schools? Defend your answer. Would it be
better to teach that one approach, or to teach both?
 QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
6. Choose any one of the steps in formulating and implementing
strategy, and then draw upon Figure 9.4 to describe how the four-step
decision-making process described in Chapter 7 can be used to explain
how that step is accomplished.

7. Use structuration theory, as depicted in Figure 9.4, to describe a

specific organizational change you are familiar with.

8. Complete a stakeholder map for an organization you would like to

start up.