Strategy implementation has resource management as pivotal challenge where planning assumptions faces situational realities of organizations. This paper discusses organizational and resource dimensions in strategy implementation process. It defines and describes the often neglected dynamic, iterative and complex nature of implementation process in the difficult terrain of actualizing organizational goals. Literature in organizational and management studies often under conceptualizes implementation as plain execution process with implications for inadequacy in strategic context. However, theories of organization, resource management and strategy implementation tend to accommodate an integrative framework for the hierarchy of strategic and managerial decisions and actions. The paper investigates into this literature deficit to enhance the strategic aptitude of middle and higher executives in handling organizational and resource dimensions in implementation. A simulation exercise is designed for participants of the Policy Strategy and Leadership Course to practice on the application of strategy implementation in real world situations.

1. ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCE DIMENSION IN
IMPLEMENTATION
BY
TANKO AHMED fwc
Senior Fellow (Security & Strategic Studies)
Research Directorate, NIPSS, Kuru – Jos,
NIGERIA
‘

2. A Paper Presented to Participants of the NIPSS
Policy, Strategy and Leadership Course No. 21
(4th – 29th April 2016)
Wednesday, 13 April 2016

3. Work in Progress

4. Prologue
• Strategy implementation has resource
management as its pivotal challenge where
planning assumptions meet situational realities.
• This paper discusses organizational and resource
dimension in strategy implementation.
• It defines and describes the often neglected
dynamic, iterative and complex nature of
implementation process in the difficult terrain of
organizational goals actualization.

5. Some Observations on Literature and
Theory
• Literature in management studies often
under conceptualizes ‘implementation’ as
plain ‘execution’ process which is inadequate
in strategic context.
• Theories of strategy accommodate
integrative framework in managerial
decisions and actions.

6. Investigation and Simulation
• The paper investigates into literature deficit
to equip middle and higher executives with
strategic aptitude in handling strategy
implementation in organization.
• A simulation exercise is designed for senior
executives to practice on the application of
strategy implementation in real world
situations.

7. Captions
• “It is a bad plan that admits of no
modification” – Publius Syrus (n.d.)
• “Plans are only good intentions unless they
immediately degenerate into hard work”
– Peter Drucker (n.d.)

8. INTRODUCTION
Strategy implementation has resource management as its
pivotal challenge – Anonymous

9. Background
• The effective realization of any plan or
strategy depends on how available resources
are perceived, harnessed and allocated to
relevant components by the various levels of
organizational leadership.
• Strategy implementation is the realization of
formulated strategies for attainment of set
goals involving all levels of the leadership
cadre.

10. Organizational Strategic
Leadership Levels
• Strategic leadership cuts across the top,
middle and lower of strategy for the purpose
of formulation, translation and execution.
• Decisions and actions usually follow
preliminary strategic thinking and formulated
plan for tasks charged to the entire
leadership cadre or core group of
organizations.

11. Concept and Practice
• Challenges facing organizational leadership in
strategy implementation often hinge on the
concept and practice in which the various
levels of organizational leadership think and
perform in different ways.
• These operational dimensions tend to
translate and apply the implementation
process differently therefore affecting entire
organizational resource management.

12. Problem Statement
• The strategic management process and strategy
formulation remain useless without putting them into
use, strategy implementation is therefore an essential
part of the entire strategic cycle.
• Strategy implementation bears the critical stage of
complex cross-functional relationships of
organizational components found in the strategic
management process.
• This paper investigates organizational and resource
dimensions in implementation within the strategic
management process to enhance understanding
across the various levels of leadership.

13. Points of Inquiry
The paper sets out with the following points of inquiry:
 To conceptualize strategy organization and its various
components and functional relationships;
 To discuss and correlate organizational and resource
dimensions in strategy implementation;
 To establish strategy implementation as pivotal point of
the strategic management process;
 To explain the conduct of strategy implementation as tool
for organizational leadership; and
 To draw conclusion and suggest the way forward for
success and survival of organizations.

14. CONCEPTUAL
DISCOURSE

15. Organization
• An organization is a planned, coordinated,
purposeful and collective action aimed at
common goals and objectives.
• It is an enduring arrangement of elements
whose actions are determined by rules for
fulfillment of tasks through a system of
coordinated division of labour.
• In this wise, all levels of organizational
leadership carry the responsibility for the
running of organizations where they belong.

16. Organizational Leadership
Organizational leadership is the management
staff that provides inspiration, objectives,
operational oversight and other administrative
services to the organization often seen in
Mission and Vision Statements
(BusinessDictionary.com).

17. Organizational Resource
• The resources available to an organization,
real or perceived, often reflected in planning
or strategy formulation.
• These resources are calculated and measured
according to use and subsequent outcome of
investment.
• For example organizations often capture their
resources at management level where all
dimensions are avail for purpose of planning.

18. Resource Dimension
• Resources are measured and managed under
main categories of human, financial,
technological, environmental and natural
resources.
• In most organizations, these various resource
categories often determine functional
structures.
• For example, organizations are structured into
human resource, finance and works
departments, depending on mission set.

19. Resource Management
• Resource refers to organizational inputs in terms
of human, financial, technological and natural
aspects deployed and manipulated for the
purpose of attaining set goals and objectives.
• Management is the process of coordinating
efforts of people in the use of other resources to
accomplish goals and objectives by efficient and
effective means.
• Resource management is the efficient and
effective deployment and allocation of
resources when and where they are needed.

20. Organizational Strategy
• Strategy is that which top management does
that is of great importance to the
organisation.
• It refers to basic directional decisions on the
purposes and missions of the organisation.
• Organizational Strategy answers the question
“What are the ends we seek and how should
we achieve them?”

21. Strategy Implementation
• Implementation is the process of carrying out,
fulfilling, realization or execution of a task, an
application or a plan.
• Strategy implementation is the second stage task
after strategy formulation, involving the application
or execution of plans through series of decisions and
actions in pursue of set goals or objectives.
• Brinkschroder (2014) put this task on the shoulders of
organizational leadership for communication of
mission, allocation of tasks and resources and
coordination of cross-functional relationships.

22. ORGANIZATIONAL
DIMENSION IN STRATEGY
IMPLEMENTATION

23. Challenges of Organizational
Dimension
• Challenges facing organizational leadership in strategy
implementation often hinge on concept and practice
in which the exercise is performed outside strategic
context (Crosby, 1996).
• Managerial approach to implementation is static and
inadequate due to narrow definition and ‘straight
jacket’ methodology.
• An earlier study (Dess, 2006) has established that
consensus on objective or methods and collaboration
across levels of leadership or management team
members positively relates to organizational
performance.

24. Implementation and Performance
• For effective implementation of strategy,
organizational leadership should know which
lever to pull and which button to press in
order to improve overall performance.
• It is critical for organizational leadership at all
levels to possess the ability to anticipate,
envision, maintain flexibility and empowers
others to create strategic change.

25. RESOURCE DIMENSION IN
STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

26. Resource Dimension as Critical to
Implementation
• Strategy implementation is “the match an
organization makes between its internal
resources and skills and the opportunities and
risks created by its external environment”
(Grant, 2001, p. 114).
• The resource dimension of organization is
critical to the attainment of set goals or mission.
• Without resources, there will be no
implementation process

27. CONCLUSION

28. • Strategy implementation poses the toughest
challenges to leadership as its philosophy and
practice are uplifted, expanded and embolden
organizations to venture into systematic planning
and execution, hitherto known only to the military
in the past.
• Organizational leadership at all levels should aspire
not only to acquire knowledge and skills but also
expand strategic faculties as agents of change.
• It is strongly recommended that Participants of the
NIPSS-PSLC course should cultivate and absorb the
attributes of strategic thinking and action for
strategy implementation.

29. COURSE EXERCISE PAPER 3
PLSC NO. 21-2016

30. COURSE EXERCISE NO. 3-2016
Groups of Course Participants are to prepare
Strategy Implementation Schedule for the
National Institute for Policy and Strategic
Studies from the amended Mission and Vision
of previous Exercise.

31. Reference
 Brinkschroder, N. (2014). Strategy implementation: Key factors, challenges and
solutions. A Presentation at the 4th IBA Bachelor Thesis Conference, November 6th.
University of Twente, Faculty of Management and Governance, Enschede, The
Netherlands.
 BusinessDictionary.com http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/-
organizational-leadership.html
 Crosby, B. L. (1996). Organizational dimension to the implementation of policy
change, IPC Monograph, No. 2, September.
 Dess, G. G. (2006). Consensus on strategy formulation and organizational
performance: Competitors in a fragmented industry. Strategic Management
Journal, November 8. DOI: 10.1002/smj.4250080305
 Drucker, P. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved April 7, 2016, from BrainyQuote.com
Web site: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/peterdruck131070.html
 Grant, R. M. (2001). The resourced-base theory of competitive advantage:
Implications for strategy formulation. California Management Review, Spring
 Publilius Syrus. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved April 7, 2016, from
BrainyQuote.com Web site:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/publiliuss131420.html