Reading Week Resources
Reading Resources
- 20 Questions Directors Should Ask about Strategy, 3rd Edition Chartered Accountants of Canada. (http://hoacorp.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/20q-strategy.pdf)
- SWOT Application Strategy Matrix – optional resource(http://amces.com/web/default/files/users/christina@amces.com/Tools/SSWOTMT.pdf)
- Montgomery, C. (July 2012). How Strategists Lead. McKinsey Quarterly. New York: McKinsey and Company. (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-strategists-lead)
- Lovallo, D. and Sibony, O. (March 2010) The case of behavioral strategy. McKinsey Quarterly. New York: McKinsey and Company. (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-case-for-behavioral-strategy)
Video Resources
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LSE Events | Prof. Richard Rumelt | Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: the difference and why it matters. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZrTl16hZdk)
The Wave of Change Graphic
One way at looking at the change process. This is for reference only. No requirements for Assignments or inclusion with blog discussions.
For Team Assignment 2
Please see Week 3 Notes for SWOT, Brainstorming and Brain Swarming Resources for completing Team Assignment 2.
[Link to Week 3 Notes here]
Implications and Challenges in Strategic Leadership
Read the learning notes below for Week 5 of the course. This is for reference only. No requirements for Assignments or inclusion with blog discussions, but the material will further your understanding of the activities a strategic leader finds themselves engaged in through their leadership activities and influence.
Leading Strategically
“Seeing things the way God sees them”
Principle: Hope for future
Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21
Empowering Public Culture
When empowering public culture, there are several principles for ensuring success. The seminal work on the subject, Inside the learning society by Stewart Ranson (1998) outlines several principles important to the practice of empowering a learning society in the public culture. in general, there needs to be a resistance to organizational democratization. In other words, the life of free enterprise beyond government controls is a central tenet of the learning society. Reliance on governmental oversight to reign in organizations to fit within the democratized vision of a city, country or region will not help build effective response to ongoing learning and organizational vitality.
Priority consideration to justice and citizenship needs are imperative. The citizenry (corporate and private) need to address their dependence on governmental directives and take responsibility for developing characteristic learning habits that challenge the government’s forward momentum versus staying in lock-step. Some of the characteristics posited by Ranson (1998) about the change a learning society must experience include:
- Learning how it is changing in context with learning previously characterized as trends and accepted as status quo.
- Changing what it has to learn. Not dependent on others, but asking questions and seeking answers and beyond past experience.
- Learning how to change. Educating themselves on different ways of approaching challenges (corporately and privately) to promote necessary momentum toward future understanding and breakthrough.
- Changing the way they learn. It is often said; if you do the same thing over and over and expect different results, it is the trademark of insanity. Similarly, freedom through changing the way, the approach, the practice of learning opens up vast opportunities where differing results is progress, not just happenstance as a result of doing the same things over and over.
- Involving all members in learning new ways of doing things. Understanding what they are learning. What demands are placed on everyone as they engage in greater learning and a commitment to independence.
- Learning to change requires an understanding of the changing conditions of learning. Knowing the characteristics for an effective learning system is a good starting point in taking responsibility for adopting new learning practices. Knowing the forms and limits knowledge operates in helps enhance new learning processes.
Priority consideration to justice and citizenship needs is central to the commitment to learning and focusing on what it means to learn as an independent entity and is central to the citizenry being entitled to shape the future. Ranson (1998) again posits the need for new vision ‘to express the value of and conditions for a learning society.’ (p. 254) The independent society adopts learning values and opportunities to further citizenry (corporate and private) development to develop and promote the following substantive and defining characteristics:
- The exhibit collective change: Learning about itself, how it changes and what changes are needed to how it learns;
- Agency is evident: Agency encourages active participation in helping communities understand their greatest strength comes from learning how to effectively act, engage and excel together.
- Opening avenues of dialogue: Enabling conversation brings differences in values and beliefs to the surface for critical evaluation;
- Democratic thinking and development: Learns the conditions for active citizenship helps a society understand the importance in creating the institutional forms of participative democracy.
For a society to truly be defined as a learning society it must satisfy the litmus test of public interest. A test where individuals are motivated to learn. Understanding that learning has purpose, and they take responsibility for achieving the ends involved in the process. ‘The motivation to learn is internal to the purpose of learning in realising the distinctive qualities of the self as agent. The rewards of learning are intrinsic to the process of enhancing personal capacities to standards of excellence.’ (Ranson, Martin, Nixon and McKeown 1996).
For structuring government toward becoming a learning society Stiglitz and Greenwald (2014) , capitalize heavily on the recognition of effective social constructs for forwarding the learning society concept. Defining the constructs broadly to mean those beliefs emerging spontaneously from the collective learning of the society and linked to the common behaviours defined within the system(s) defining the learned constructs. (p. 460). Changing perception of powerlessness to empowerment goes a long way in transforming constructs of defeat to introducing constructs of possibility and success within the society. As Stiglitz and Greenwald note (p. 461):
Those who think that they will not do well won’t in fact do well. if one believes that change is not possible, or that most changes are for the worse, then one won’t undertake actions that facilitate and promote change.
‘Just as beliefs affect individual actions and performance, widely held beliefs affect collective actions.’ (Stiglitz and Greenwald, p. 461)
Unfortunately, even if in the long run, a more dynamic society benefits most members of society, in the short run, there can be (and normally will be) losers. And not surprisingly, those who might lose seek to prevent such changes through any means they can. (Stiglitz and Greenwald, p. 466)
This is where the call of a learning society, must also commit to developing an ethical citizenship culture. Ethical citizenship starts with relationships and relationship building. William K. Dustin (1999) supports this thinking when he says; ‘It is through relationships that we as individuals participate in the process of living and contribute, either positively or negatively.’ (p. 5) He continues with a larger palette on relational thinking.
For Dustin, relationships are not simply with one another, or with the environment we live in. Relationships travel beyond what we expect and delve deeply into the ‘intangible realm of ideas.’ (p. 6) Affecting views of citizenship at the deepest level. Establishing an ethical context to create the balance and harmony needed to achieve ‘democratic ideals.’ (p. 6) When citizenship become our highest ethos, as citizen first ‘with a secondary role as private person, the ideals of democracy will become achievable.’ (p. 7) The important thing is to get from where you are to where you want to be.
Louis Carroll, in his classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, describes an exchange between the fictional Alice and the fantastical Cheshire Cat.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘can you tell me which way to go from here?’
‘But where do you want to get to?” said the Cat.
‘It doesn’t really matter -.’ began Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.’ said the Cat.
‘But I would like to get somewhere.’ Alice explained.
“If you just go on walking” said the Cat, “in the end you’ll arrive somewhere.” (pp. 20, 21)
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reading Resource References
Atha, D. L. (Ed.), Castellon, A., George, I., Laird, P., Mitchell, K., Page, D., Peregrym, D., Strong, H., Willaume, D., Wollf, R., Wu, T. (2018) MA leadership and MA in educational leadership monograph 2018. Unpublished manuscript. Trinity Western University: Langley BC.
Carroll, L. (1865) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. (150th Anniversary Edition) Oxford: University of Oxford Press
Dustin, W. (1999) Toward an ethic of citizenship: creating a culture of democracy for the 21st century. Indianapolis IN: Universe Inc.
Ranson, S. (1998). Inside the learning society. London: Continuum.