Humans differ from our co-inhabitants of planet earth due in large part to our vastly superior mental capacity. Our cognition involves the ability to hope in the future. Positive psychology around human flourishing involves the belief that forthcoming opportunities will hold better prospects than our life does at the present.
If we ask children what profession they desire to attain upon reaching adulthood, one hears big dreams including thriving as a famous singer, astronaut, football star, president, governor, ambassador, etc.
We keep our pro-self-capabilities bias well into adulthood only dampening our euphoria to more realistic goals often in midlife.
Even though statistically the sizeable majority of people do not achieve their hoped-for expectations, it does not diminish our species’ preponderance to reach and dream for the stars. Thomas Suddendorf details how humans think of alternate futures, decide on those futures, and then act by making deliberate choices in order to realise planned futures that sets us apart and unique as a species.
Companies function in a similar way with big hopes and often unattainable and unrealised strategic plans. Firm stakeholders come together and dream of what an organisation can attain, become, and proliferate. Here in Kenya, strategic planning holds pride of purpose as one of the core functions of boards and executive management teams.
Our sophisticated governance structures combined with our highly educated and experienced executive class of leaders regularly initiates and undergoes strategic planning exercises. Even startup entrepreneurs in Kenya often trudge the well-worn path of business plan development to showcase their hopes, desires, and plans.
Tragically, organisations fail to meet the majority of strategic planning goals. Strategy failure rates vary depending on the industry.
Among the pressure to achieve strategic objectives, Shathees Baskaran, Ling Yang, Lim Yi, and Nomahaza Mahadi’s research highlights what happens when between 29 per cent and 31 per cent of firms face an integrity dilemma while trying to implement their strategic plans and even end up making unethical choices so as to stay on target. Companies across the globe and right here in Kenya spend copious amounts of stakeholder time developing strategic plans and also developing organisational development plans on how to achieve the strategy.
So, if strategy encapsulates the “where” a firm wants to go, then organisation development really incorporates “how” a company gets there. Too many firms focus merely on the where but neglect the how.
Some big “where” goals might include a vision of developing into the premier provider of niche technology solutions in a particular industry in East Africa. Then the firm could incorporate metrics of strategic success including an increase from two per cent to 10 per cent market share, grow topline revenue by 70 per cent, launch four new products, recruit 20 new staff, and increase gross profit margin by 50 per cent all within five years.
But what internal changes must occur in order to reach these strategic goals? Organisation development provides the answers.
Strategy seeks, in large part, to develop corporate missions, visions, and the necessary targets that will define success of vision attainment. Organisation development, on the other hand, looks at employees, business processes, organisational structures, and managed change in order to start improving and achieving strategic objectives.
When hiring a strategy consultant, look for one who also comes with organisation development experience, education, or credentials. Develop a planned change model for how you will make internal changes in order to achieve each strategic plan. It will make your strategic plan attainment infinitely more likely. A strategic plan without a corresponding organisation development-driven planned change model is like an emperor with no clothes on akin to the 19th century children’s story The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen.
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