2. Introduction
• Although strategic thinking and acting are connected,
strategic thinking alone cannot bring about results
• It is important to have a well documented and planned
strategy but the ability to implement it is a critical
factor for organizational success.
• Execution tends to be a challenge for many companies.
Many factors make it difficult to translate strategic
thinking into action including lack of clear strategic
focus, difficulty aligning tactics with strategy and
difficulty in integrating short-term objectives with
long-term ones.
3. Nature of strategic acting
• Managers take action all the time, but not all
managers’ activities are considered strategic
• Executive actions that have the most power to provide
a competitive edge for the organization are the
strategic actions
• Managers undertake Strategic action when they are
acting upon a significant uncertainty
• Managers must have a certain level of situational
awareness in order to make sound decisions.
4. Conti….
• Tactics are central to execution, but execution is
not tactics. Execution is fundamental to strategy
and has to shape it
• No worthwhile strategy can be planned without
taking into account the organization’s ability to
execute it.
5. Goals of strategic acting
• Achieving your vision in a way that’s consistent with
your values
• Keeping the Big Picture in mind while doing your day-
to-day tasks
• Being proactive rather than constantly putting out
fires
• Saying no to things that aren’t priorities
• Doing all of the above in alignment with everyone in
your group.
7. Setting clear priorities
• Different individuals in different departments
want their needs to become a priority.
• strategic leaders should be able to set clear
priorities that will give guidance to major
activities so that the organization can function
more efficiently
• It requires differentiating between alternative
ways of allocating scarce resources in terms of
their relative contributions to the organization’s
future vitality
8. Creating condition for other’s
effectiveness
• Strategic leaders today must create conditions for
others’ effectiveness to go along with competitive
conditions
• In order for the organization to achieve success in
today’s ever-changing environment it must have
innovative personnel who are able to take certain
levels of risk
9. Cont….
• Hence, rewards for achievement should be more
impressive than punishment for mistakes.
• Discouraging people in the organization from
taking reasonable risk can keep the enterprise in
unfavorable condition.
10. Make strategy a Learning process
• the business’s strategy is just its theory of what it
takes to be successful, and this needs to be tested
with some courageous experimentation
• Learning can be through
▪ testing organizational territories: testing
strategic thinking hypotheses
▪ Conduct business experiments: assessing viability
of an idea through introducing an early version
of a product or service.
11. Cont….
▪ After Action Review: this can be through making
evaluation after taking the action at full-scale,
then making necessary corrective actions.
12. Act Decisively in the Face of
Uncertainty
• As perfect certainty is unattainable, effective
strategic leaders are the ones who act in the face
of uncertainty
• actions cannot wait for perfection.
13. Cont….
• Acting decisively in the face of uncertainty is
difficult because
▪ Changing conditions
▪ Failure of taking initiative because of risk to one’s
own career, department or the entire organization
▪ Organizational cultures sometimes discourage
taking risks.
▪ It is tempting to reduce uncertainty by investing
safely even if payoff is less.
14. Act with the Short Term and Long
Term in Mind
• Strategic leader put most of their attention on the
long run. However, without short-run gains, long-
run goals may not be realized
• In the short run, people can see the benefit of higher pay
or greater control, but long-run benefits may seem less
certain.
• the leader must help his followers see the long-term value
of their involvement
15. Make Execution an organizational
culture
• When things aren’t going well, leaders often think that
the organizational culture needs to change
• the culture to the organization is like the
software to the computer
• if your goal is to get things done, then cutural
change is a reality
16. Make Execution an organizational
culture
The cultural change framework requires three steps
1. express the desired results clearly (identify your goals)
2. discuss how to get those results (the path to follow)
3. Reward people for producing the results (reward the
doers)
When you od these three things effectively, you creat a culture
of getting things done
17. The relationship among strategic
thinking, acting and influencing
• Thinking and acting strategically involves being able to
plot a course of action that leads to results, in light of
opportunities, obstacles and change, and ensuring
actions are implemented in the right way and at the
right time to achieve the desired outcome
• It’s important to use knowledge of strategic thinking
and planning to set priorities for allocating resources,
and hence, pave the way for strategic acting
18. The relationship among strategic
thinking, acting and influencing
• Strategic acting is also closely connected to
strategic influencing. This includes, creating
conditions for others’ effectiveness.
• strategic influencing is a natural result of
strategic acting.
