Summary Strategy Implementation | articles
Summary leading organizational change - Raffaelli (2017) ................................................2
Summary Leading Change, Why transformation efforts fail – Kotter ................................7
Summary Control in an age of empowerment – Simons (2000) .........................................9
Summary Fit control system to your managerial style – Cammann & Nadler (1976) ......11
Summary Note on flexible budgeting and variance analysis – Young (2013) .................14
Summary Borealis – Kaplan & Jorgenson (1996) ...............................................................17
Summary Note on Organization Structure - Nohria (1995) ...............................................19
Summary Designing Organizations for performance - Robert L. Simons (2005) .............24
Summary On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B - Kerr (1975) .........................32
Summary Incentives within organizations - Brian Hall .....................................................34
Summary Strategy to implementation: seeking alignment – Harvard Business Press ....39
Summary Measuring Performance – Harvard Business Press ..........................................42
Summary Strategy Maps - Kaplan & Norton (2003) ...........................................................50
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,Summary leading organizational change - Raffaelli (2017)
Key assumptions
1. Organizations are systems: alter one component, you will affect others
2. Change is process and outcome: way of management will affect outcome
3. No single correct formula for managing successful change
Why is change needed
▪ Performance gaps: difference between expected and actual performance (seeking for
efficiency). Diagnostic tool: leaders should evaluate organization’s (1) ability to perform and
produce output (2) capacity to foster individual learning (3) potential to adapt
▪ Opportunity gaps: potential future problems or missed value-creating opportunities in the
organization will face if it does not act today. Two ways:
o Evolving shifts in customer preferences and demands, competitors offerings etc.
o Track records and capabilities will sustain them indefinitely.
What sort of change is called for
Make a series of choices to design a change that fits both the type of gap the organization faces and
the set of challenges that the change effort will encounter. SORT (= Scope, Origin, Rollout and
Timing).
Scope of change: intended impact of the change on the organization’s core practices, norms, identity
and member behaviours. Successful organizations align their structures, systems, culture,
competencies and assessment measures (Tushman & Nadler)
▪ Radical change: affect all aspects, current architecture is unsustainable and needs change
▪ Incremental change: small adjustments to existing system, process and routines, current
system is not entirely broken, but could benefit from fine-tuning.
Origin of change: whether the leader plans the change or it emerges from business units more
organically.
▪ Top-down: clear directives, goals, communication plans and assessment models. Top-down
required buy in from management team, which ten disseminates throughout organization.
▪ Bottom up: within organization and look different across multiple units depending on how its
get started.
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,Types of change
Tactical change (top-down, incremental): specific
issue within organization to achieve particular goal.
Shift in behaviours, routines and implemented
quickly outside business unit. Organization wide-
change.
Evolutionary change (bottom-up, incremental):
Leaders rely on ideas to emerge from individuals and
subunits within organization. Leader’s role: provide
resources and remove barriers and offer guidance.
To learn and test new ideas without upending the
entire system.
Revolutionary change (bottom-up, radical): change
impacts in core beliefs and behaviours, as well as
norms and structures that guide the organization.
Emerges within the organization and starts with movement or idea within business unit.
Disadvantage: lead to chaos and damage, especially if leader or other disagree with direction.
Transformational change (top-down, radical): starts with leader’s goal in mind. Intended impact is
significant leaders devote great deal of resources to this change since directly tied to leader’s
strategic goals. After change, organization does not go back to old way of doing (system change).
Best approach to implementation
Rollout of change: decision about where to implement change across the organization.
▪ Systemwide: rolled out across multiple units of subunits simultaneously, effective when
change need to start immediately.
▪ Localized: implementing change in specific units, one by one, until it reaches all areas, then
the hiring process and finally the organization structure.
Timing of change: pace (= tempo) of implementation effort.
▪ Fast change: goals enacting it rapidly and returning to the ‘’new normal’’. Effective when
following a jolt that threatens the organization’s taken-for-granted routines. Concept: begins
with the leader: (1) unfreezing existing organizational structures (2) enacting and
implementing the change (3) refreezing the organization around a new set of standards,
practices and norms
▪ Slow change: implemented over extended period or may go on indefinitely. More
opportunities for evaluation and learning, but can lose momentum if they extend too long.
Rather than periodically unfreezing their assembly lines to retool manufacturing processes
rapidly.
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, Trade-off (= afweging) between stretching and stress: leaders must consider how much the change
will effectively stretch the existing organizational norms, behaviours and routines in the necessary
direction, while in turn balancing how much stress they can impose on the individuals and groups
experiencing the change.
Implementation tactics
Help define what leaders must do.
▪ Bold strokes: signal form the top to the rest of the organization. Command attention. Leader
often frame strokes as big strategic decisions or major economic initiatives.
Examples: buying another company, firing subset of employees
▪ Long marches: sustained programs or packages of change that alter organization’s structure
and culture. Sequenced of interventions layered on top of another. Create durable condition
to support changes in behaviour.
As separate tools for implementing change, bold strokes and long marches are useful way to consider
action a leader might take. For instance, bold stroke can help set a new strategy or vision and it might
be followed by a series of long march decisions that align the strategy with a new set of intended
behaviours across the entire organization.
Creating buy-in and getting other on board
▪ Assessment of readiness: who to engage, when and how to engage them, and how much to
expend on each group. Leader must also attuned to ways in which they can foster buy-in.
Four measures of readiness and commitment:
o Discrepancy: gap between state of organization and what should be and that the
change is needed?
o Appropriateness: belief that specific change is designed to address a discrepancy is
the correct one for the situation
o Efficacy: belief that they can successfully implement change?
o Principal support: individuals believe that leaders are committed to change’s success
and not going to be passing for ‘program of the month’.
▪ Mobilizing buy-in:
1. Awareness: leaders must determine who should be aware of the change → stakeholder
analysis: identifying most likely to support or resists proposed change.
2. Self-concern: ask individuals to associate self-concern with change. Understand how
change matters them personally
3. Mental Tryout: opportunity to imagine what change might be like before it happens
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