The 8 Steps to Strategic Success


Book Description

All organizations recognise the importance of strategy creation and execution: strategy is the process of developing the corporate future. Unfortunately, it often doesn't generate the required results. This book presents a new 8-step process for creating a strategy that really delivers. For each step, the book describes the key parts of the process, shows how to avoid the potential pitfalls, and points to the most useful strategic models and frameworks. Readers can see the process in action by following the intriguing case study that unfolds throughout the book. One of the critical determinants of strategic success is to see strategy not just as planning but as a process that involves dialogues with multiple stakeholders, both within and outside the company. This concept is integrated into every phase of the 8-step approach and is at the heart of its effectiveness in creating strategy that delivers in practice.




10 Steps to Successful Strategic Planning


Book Description

Create a dynamic strategic plan, central to your organizations ability to make critical business decisions, with this step-by-step walk through the strategic planning process. 10 Steps to Successful Strategic Planning offers a simple 10 step process to assessing your priorities, organizing your goals, and getting your organization on the path to planned success. Loaded with worksheets, exercises, tips, tools, checklists, and other easy-to-use and interactive learning aids, this title guides you through the entire strategic planning process.




Leading Change


Book Description

From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented merger and acquisition activity to scandal, greed, and, ultimately, recession -- we've learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. By outlining the process organizations have used to achieve transformational goals and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work.




Making Strategy


Book Description

′Demystifies strategy making while at the same time deepening our understanding of what the process entails. Their work is a marvellous guide for those striving to make sense of complexity′ - Karl E. Weick, Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, University of Michigan ′This book is at the very cutting edge of strategic management theory and yet also of immense practical use. It is truly a rare and stunning achievement′ - John M Bryson, McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota ′Using this book enabled me to facilitate a multicultural team of seven managers so that they very quickly got to grips with the challenges and opportunities facing the organization and developed a realistic workable strategy, whilst at the same time building a real sense of team cohesion and the feeling that individuals had been listened to′ - Alison Devine, Director, British Council, Taipai This lucid and highly-accessible text addresses the challenges of how to build a robust and implementable strategy. Strategy making is seen as something relevant to managers of departments, divisions, SME′s, as well as the top management teams of public and for-profit organizations. Four key routes to creating a strategy are discussed. These routes, when taken together, provide a powerful means for agreeing a negotiated strategy, and comprise: strategic issue management, agreeing organizational purpose, competitiveness from the exploitation and protection of distinctiveness, and the strategic management of stakeholders. The designs have been used extensively, in a wide range of countries, by management teams in all types of organisations.




Strategic Planning


Book Description

This book is exceptional treatise on strategic planning for single-business companies that is at once academically rigorous and uncommonly practical.




Your Strategy Needs a Strategy


Book Description

You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.




Buy-In


Book Description

You've got a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it to the group, but get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets in return. Before you know what's happened, your idea is dead, shot down. You're furious. Everyone has lost: Those who would have benefited from your proposal. You. Your company. Perhaps even the country. It doesn't have to be this way, maintain John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to win the support your idea needs to deliver valuable results. The key? Understand the generic attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy time and time again. Then engage these adversaries with tactics tailored to each strategy. By "inviting in the lions" to critique your idea--and being prepared for them--you'll capture busy people's attention, help them grasp your proposal's value, and secure their commitment to implementing the solution. The book presents a fresh and amusing fictional narrative showing attack strategies in action. It then provides several specific counterstrategies for each basic category the authors have defined--including: · Death-by-delay: Your enemies push discussion of your idea so far into the future it's forgotten. · Confusion: They present so much data that confidence in your proposal dies. · Fearmongering: Critics catalyze irrational anxieties about your idea. · Character assassination: They slam your reputation and credibility. Smart, practical, and filled with useful advice, Buy-In equips you to anticipate and combat attacks--so your good idea makes it through to make a positive change.




Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations


Book Description

The bestselling guide to nonprofit planning, with proven, practical advice Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations describes a proven method for creating an effective, organized, actionable strategy, tailored to the unique needs of the nonprofit organization. Now in its third edition, this bestselling manual contains new information about the value of plans, specific guidance toward business planning, and additional information about the strategic plan document itself. Real-world case studies illustrate different planning and implementation scenarios and techniques, and the companion website offers templates, tools, and worksheets that streamline the process. The book provides expert insight, describing common misperceptions and pitfalls to avoid, helping readers craft a strategic plan that adheres to the core values of the organization. A well-honed strategic plan helps nonprofit managers set priorities, and acquire and allocate the resources necessary to achieve their goals. It also provides a framework for handling challenges, and keeps the focus on the organization's priorities. Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations is an excellent source of guidance for managers at nonprofits of every size and budget, helping readers to: Identify the reasons for planning, and gather information from internal and external stakeholders Assess the current situation accurately, and agree on priorities, mission, values, and vision Prioritize goals and objectives for the plan, and develop a detailed implementation strategy Evaluate and monitor a changing environment, updating roles, goals, and parameters as needed Different organizations have different needs, processes, resources, and priorities. The one thing they have in common is the need for a no-nonsense approach to planning with practical guidance and a customizable framework. Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations takes the fear out of planning, with expert guidance on the nonprofit's most vital management activity.




Reinventing Strategy


Book Description

At last-a proven system for developing the strategic innovations every company needs to compete and win As everyone knows, today's unprecedented rate of business change demands new levels of strategic insight and adaptability. Reinventing Strategy is the first practical, systematic guide to creating an adaptive enterprise, showing how companies around the world are using the Strategic Learning approach to consistently out think, out maneuver, and out perform their competition. As Willie Pietersen explains, companies that aspire to long-term success must develop and implement strategy as part of a continuous four-step cycle-Learn, Focus, Align, Execute-and he offers dozens of provocative anecdotes and case studies, illustrating how to implement it at every level of an organization. Written with unusual clarity, frankness, and wit, Reinventing Strategy will change the way managers everywhere approach their greatest and most important challenge: the need to make strategy into a tool for ongoing corporate renewal.




Church and Ministry Strategic Planning


Book Description

Spiritual management is required for spiritual organization, and yet a ministry's master plan should be the Master's plan for that ministry. Church and Ministry Strategic Planning assists readers in developing a Biblically based blueprint for carrying out the many activities in which the church or ministry is involved. The authors show clearly how careful planning is inspired by the Scriptures ("Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?"--Luke 14:28) and how it improves making decisions today which ultimately affect the ministry's effectiveness tomorrow. Church and Ministry Strategic Planning covers all areas of this type of planning and can be read and reviewed quickly. Through the use of a model of the strategic planning process, the authors show how to develop mission statements, define strategic objectives, develop strategy options and operating strategies, appraise performance, and monitor strategic planning. Readers are led step-by-step through these key areas of creating a strategic plan. Examples and worksheets at the end of each chapter enable pastors, administrators, and lay leaders to develop a strategic plan fitting to their specific ministry or church. The appendixes provide tools used in planning as well as a complete sample strategic plan for a large church. Put these concepts to immediate use in decisionmaking and pursue God's purpose and vision for the church or ministry. If readers take the time and effort to study this book, apply its format, and prayerfully keep God in every step of the plan, here is what the authors believe plan administrators can expect: 1. A sense of enthusiasm in the church or ministry 2. A 5-year plan in writing to which everyone is committed 3. A sense of commitment by the entire church to its overall direction 4. Time for the leaders to do what they have been called to do 5. Clear job duties and responsibilities 6. Clear and evident improvement in the health and vitality of every member of the church staff 7. Measurable improvement in the personal lives of all those in responsible positions with time for vacations, family, and personal pursuits 8.The ability to measure very specifically, the growth and contribution made by senior pastors or evangelists at the close of their careers 9. Guaranteed leadership of the church or ministry because a plan is in place--in writing--and is understood. Even more importantly, a management team and philosophy will be in place to guide the church or ministry into its next era of growth Explore this Biblical perspective on planning and develop a strategic plan that is systematic and continuous and allows the church or ministry to assess its market position, establish goals, objectives, priorities, and strategies to be completed within specified time periods, achieve greater staff and member commitment and teamwork aimed at meeting challenges and solving problems, and muster its resources to meet these changes through anticipation.