Strategic Planning in the Small Business

Unit

1

HO 1-5 (continued)

Chapter 1 The Strategic Management Process

15

function management

performs insofar as

organizational success or failure

is

concerned, it isn't all managers

must do or be concerned about.

Third, strategy

management makes erratic demands

on a manager's time. An

organization's situation does

not change in an orderly or

predictable way. Hence

strategic issues

and decisions take up big

chunks of management time in

some

weeks and months

and little or none in others.

Last, the big day in. day

out time-consuming aspect of strategic

management

is

tiying to get the best strategy-supportive

pcrformance out of ever

individual

and trying to perfect the current

strategy by refining us, content

and execution.

Managing

strategy is mostly managing the

strategy in place. not developing

and

instituting

strategic change. The really valuable

strategic management

skill lies

less

in actually formulating strategic

change than n knowing ihen

to do ,o

Perpetual changes in strategy

are not only dysfunctional but

also are unneces­

sary-most of the

time, there's more to be gained from

improving execution of the

present strategy.

WHO ARE THE
STRATEGY MANAGERS?

An organization's chief executive

officer (CEO) is the most

visible and most

important strategy manager.

The CEO, as captain of

the ship. bears full responsi­

bility for leading

the tasks of formulating and implementing

the strategic plan for

the organizatioi

as a whole, irrespective of

the fact that others have a hand

in the

process. The CEO functions

as chief direction-setter, chief objective-setter,

chief

strategy-maker

and chief strategy-implementer

for the total enterprise.

What the

CEO views as important

usually moves to the top

of the strategic priority list. and

the CEO has the final

word on key strategic decisions.

Vice presidents

for production, marketing, finance.

human resources. and

other functional departments

have important strategy-making

and strategy-imple­

menting responsibilities as well. Normally,

the production v-p oversees

produc­

tion strategy;

the marketing v-p heads up

the marketing strategy effort:

the

financial v-p is

in charge of financial strategy;

and so on. Usually functional vice

presidents

are also involved in proposing

and developing key elements

of the

overall

strategy, working closely with

the CEO to hammer out a

consensus and

make

certain parts of the strategy

more effective. Only rarely

are all the key

pieces of organization

strategy personally fashioned

by the CEO.

But managerial positions

with strategy-making and strategy-implementing

responsibility are

by no means restricted to these

few senior executives, in ,erN

real ways,

every manager is a strategy-maker

and strategy-implem::enter fir

the

area he/she has authority over and

supervises. This is be .ause

every part of a

company-be it a

business unit, division, operating

department, plant, or district

office-has a strategic role

to carry out. And the manager

in charge of that unit.

with

guidance from superiors, usually

ends up doing some or most of

the strategy­

3 Mintzberg, "Crafting Strategy,"

p.73.

91