Dec' 20
The Effective Executive
Focus
Strategic conversations are defined as the conversations that have the potential to influence the future direction of an individual, an organization, a community, a society or the world.
Strategic conversations are not regular business conversations. Such conversations have a deeper motive and a broader purpose. Strategic conversations are guided by clarity of purpose and vision. Such conversations are aimed at developing shared goals. This can be facilitated by encouraging a focus on strengths and celebrating the organization's strengths and achievements.
Leaders should invest time and efforts in building conversation skills and curiosity among employees. Strategic conversations develop focus on the future and adopt an external perspective. It develops tolerance towards ambiguity and uncertainty. It builds resilience among the employees. It strengthens a sense of camaraderie and engenders the culture of shared responsibility.
There is a lot of literature emphasizing the importance of strategic conversations, which draws the attention of the leaders to add value to the organizations in times of distress, through strategic conversations.
This issue of Effective Executive reinforces the significance of strategic conversations, and shares handpicked papers by experts in the area.
The first paper, "Strategic Conversations with the CEO: Constructing an Outline Agenda for Action" by Michael Walton, offers advice for newly appointed executives on what they should focus on as they transition into their new responsibilities. The advice comes from sources experienced in appointing, working with, and advising top executives. Whilst directed at the CEO level, the advice has applicability for all those in positions of executive authority.
The second paper, "Leadership and Digital Transformation: Building Strategic Conversations" by Stephanie Jones and Jim van Hulst, provides contextual concerns and identifies possible steps to transform traditional manufacturing into a digital company, using a framework which has proved to be successful in many businesses.
The third paper, "The Effectiveness of Leaders in Communicating Organizational Values" by Nkululeko Madonko and Kurt A April, emphasizes the role of leaders in communicating values in an organization as a leadership practice.The last paper of the issue, "Building Politically Incorrect, Nostalgic and Patriotic Institutions: How to Achieve Principle-Driven Growth by Targeting the Silent Conservative Majority" by Kai-Alexander Schlevogt, focuses primarily on five aspects, viz., critical thinking, core brand identity, truth-based competence, reorganizing the ecosystem and impact-oriented success, of organizational excellence.
Consulting Editor
Strategic Conversations with the ceo: Constructing an Outline Agenda for Action
This paper offers advice for newly appointed executives on what they should focus on as they transition into their new responsibilities. The advice comes from sources experienced in appointing, working with, and advising top executives. Whilst directed at the CEO level, the advice has applicability for all those in positions of executive authority. Whilst setting the 'direction of travel', etc. for an organization remains a primary responsibility for top executives and senior executives, they rely on others to get things done. Consequently, much of an executive's success will depend on the clarity of the 'strategic' business-focused conversations reached with key colleagues. Examples of the topics covered during such conversations are drawn from the advice given to newly appointed CEOs.
Leadership and Digital Transformation: Building Strategic Conversations
What is the road map for a change leader transforming a business from traditional manufacturing into a digital company? Easier said than done. Here we provide contextual concerns and identify possible steps, using a framework which has proved to be successful in many businesses. It is widely agreed that there is a need to continually transform any business as costs are always under pressure, and one way to minimize these costs is to look for technological answers. There is always risk in the transformation, in making the most appropriate investments in leaders, machines, and tools. Next to the costs of these assets is the need to keep your customers buying from you-whilst their expectations are shifting. They expect substantially more value from what they purchase, and a flawless customer experience. This is the new challenge for strategic leadership, and it is unlikely to stop here.
The Effectiveness of Leaders in Communicating Organizational Values
Organizations are increasingly being required to transform their cultures. Leaders are regularly confronted by the need to communicate and inculcate a core set of values and associated behaviors that an organization and its executive/senior leaders aspire to. However, leaders may lack the communicative competence, tools and/or frameworks to effectively communicate an organization's core values, which results in employees not experiencing a transformed culture, in which they feel involved, respected and connected-where the richness of ideas, backgrounds, perspectives and behaviors are not fully leveraged to create business value. The primary aim of this research was to assess the effectiveness of leaders in communicating organizational values. The research philosophy that was adopted was one of ontology, encapsulated in the theoretical perspective of epistemological interpretivism. The methodology employed was a phenomenological inductive approach. The outcome of the analysis of the data was a set of five themes and six thought groupings that portrayed an intricate understanding of communication, ultimately yielding a two-winged communications model.
Building Politically Incorrect, Nostalgic and Patriotic Institutions: How to Achieve Principle-Driven Growth by Targeting the Silent Conservative Majority
As a global mega-trend, institutions, faced with concerted pressure from radical ideologues, are trying to convert themselves into "politically correct" entities. This leads to large-scale value destruction both at the individual and societal level. To counteract this trend and seize the opportunities that are oftentimes hidden in the apocalyptic crisis, transformational leaders should build politically incorrect, nostalgic and patriotic organizations. A strategic "counter-reformist model" is proposed, which includes the following five actionable recommendations: (1) courageously sharpen and use critical thinking tools to understand truth, (2) focus on core brand identity to serve the silent nostalgic majority, (3) center the organization on truth-based competence, (4) re-organize the ecosystem to shape global mega-trends and values, and (5) measure impact-oriented success creatively and fine-tune your strategic model.
| Click here to upload your Articles |
Journals
Magazines
- HRM Review
- Marketing Mastermind
- Global CEO
- The IUPs World of IOT
Articles of the Month
ISBN: 978-81-314-2793-4Price: ₹250
Payment by D.D. favouring
"ICFAI A/c IUP", Hyderabad
Reach us at
info@iupindia.in
Tel: +91 8498843633