Strategy Implementation: Staffing and
Directing
Implementation of new strategies often calls
for new HR priorities and HR use. They
include hiring new people with new skills,
firing people with inappropriate or
substandard skills and training existing
employees to learn new skills.
New strategies especially – growth and
retrenchment.
Integration Managers under growth
strategies
Prepare a competitive profile of the company in
terms of its strengths and weaknesses
Draft a profile of what the ideal combined
company should look like
Develop action plans to close the gap between
actual and ideal
Establish training programs to unite the
combined company and make it more
competitive
Staffing
To be a successful integration manager, a
person should have:
Deep knowledge of the acquiring company
Flexible management style
Ability to work in cross-functional teams
Willingness to work independently
Sufficient emotional and cultural intelligence to
work in a diverse environment
“Staffing Follows Strategy”
One way to implement a company’s business
strategy, such as overall low cost, is through
training and development.
Executive characteristics influence strategic
outcomes for a corporation.
Matching the Manager
to the Strategy
Executive type
executives with a particular mix of skills and
experiences
paired with a specific corporate strategy
Executive Types
Dynamic industry Analytical
Cautious profit
expert – portfolio manager
planner – Stability
Concentration –Diversification
Strategy
Strategy Strategy
Turnaround
Professional
specialist –
liquidator - Firms
Turnaround
to liquidate
Strategy
Selection and Management Development
Executive succession
process of replacing a key top manager
Succession planning
identifying candidates below the top layer of
management
measuring internal candidates against external
candidates
providing financial incentives
Identifying Abilities and Potential
Performance appraisal systems identify good
performers with promotion potential.
Assessment centers evaluate a person’s
suitability for an advanced position.
Job rotation ensures employees are gaining a
mix of experience to prepare them for future
responsibilities.
Problems in Retrenchment
Downsizing
the planned elimination of positions or jobs
also called “rightsizing” or “resizing”
Can damage the learning capacity of an
organization
Creativity drops significantly and it becomes very
difficult to keep high performers from leaving
the company
Guidelines for
Successful Downsizing
Eliminate unnecessary work instead of making
across the board cuts
Contract out work that others can do cheaper
Plan for long-run efficiencies
Communicate the reasons for actions - Tell
employees not only why company is downsizing but, also, what
company is trying to achieve
Invest in the remaining employees
International Issues in Staffing
Companies that do a good job of managing
foreign assignments follow three general
practices:
When making international assignments, they focus
on transferring knowledge and developing global
leadership.
They make foreign assignments to people whose
technical skills are matched or exceeded by their
cross-cultural abilities.
International Issues in Staffing
They end foreign assignments with a
deliberate repatriation process, with career
guidance and jobs where the employees can
apply what they learned in their assignments.
International Issues in Staffing
Stealth expatriates
managers that are either cross-border commuters
(especially in the EU) or the accidental expatriate
who goes on many business trips or temporary
assignments due to offshoring and/or
international joint ventures
Leading
Implementation
involves leading and coaching people to use their
abilities and skills most effectively and efficiently
to achieve organizational objectives
Without direction, people tend to do their work
according to their personal view of what tasks
should be done, how and in what order.
Managing Corporate Culture
Strong cultures are resistant to change.
Optimal culture supports mission and strategies.
Management must evaluate what a particular
change in strategy means to the corporate
culture, assess whether a change in culture is
needed and decide whether an attempt to
change the culture is worth the likely costs.
Assessing Strategy—Culture Compatibility
Is the proposed strategy compatible with the
company’s current culture?
Can the culture be easily modified to make it
more compatible with the new strategy?
Is management willing and able to make major
organizational changes and accept probable
delays and a likely increase in costs?
Is management still committed to implementing
the strategy?
Managing Cultural Change
Through Communication
Companies in which major cultural changes have
successfully taken place had the following
characteristics in common:
The CEO and other top managers had a strategic
vision of what the company could become and
communicated that vision to employees at all levels.
The vision was translated into the key elements
necessary to accomplish that vision.
Methods of Managing the
Culture of an Acquired Firm
The choice of which method to use should be
based on:
1. How much members of the acquired firm
value preserving their own culture
2. How attractive they perceive the culture of
the acquirer to be
Methods of Managing the
Culture of an Acquired Firm
Methods of Managing the
Culture of an Acquired Firm
Integration
involves a relatively balanced give-and-take of cultural
and managerial practices between the merger
partners, and no strong imposition of cultural change
on either company
Assimilation
involves the domination of one organization over the
other. The domination is not forced, but it is welcomed
by members of the acquired firm, who may feel for
many reasons that their culture have not produced
success.
Methods of Managing the
Culture of an Acquired Firm
Separation
characterized by a separation of the two
companies’ cultures. Separate units are run by
separate cultures without each others
interferences.
Deculturation
involves the disintegration of one company’s
culture resulting from unwanted and extreme
pressure from the other to impose its culture and
practices.
Action Planning
Action plan
states what actions are going to be taken, by
whom, during what time frame and with what
expected results
Action Planning
1. Specific actions to be taken to make the program
operational
2. Dates to begin and end each action
3. Person responsible for carrying out each action
4. Person responsible for monitoring the timeliness
and effectiveness of each action
5. Expected financial and physical consequences of
each action
6. Contingency plans
Importance of an Action Plan
Serves as a link between strategy formulation
and evaluation and control
Specifies what needs to be done differently
from current operations
Helps in both the appraisal of performance and
in the identification of any remedial actions
Explicit assignment of responsibilities for
implementing and monitoring the programs
may contribute to better motivation
Example of an Action Plan
Management by Objectives
Management by Objectives (MBO)
encourages participative decision making through
shared goal setting and performance assessment
based on achieving stated objectives
Management by Objectives
The MBO process involves:
1. Establishing and communicating organizational
objectives
2. Setting individual objectives
3. Developing an action plan to achieve objectives
4. Periodically (at least quarterly) reviewing
performance
Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management (TQM)
an operational philosophy committed to customer
satisfaction and continuous improvement
committed to quality/excellence and to being the
best in all functions
Total Quality Management
TQM’s essential ingredients are:
1. Intense focus on customer satisfaction
2. Internal as well as external customers
3. Accurate measurement of every critical variable in a
company’s operations
4. Continuous improvement of products and services
5. New work relationships based on trust and
teamwork
Dimensions of National Culture
Power distance
extent to which a society accepts an unequal
distribution of power in organizations
Uncertainty avoidance
extent to which a society feels threatened by
uncertain and ambiguous situations
Dimensions of National Culture
Individualism–collectivism
extent to which a society values individual
freedom and independence of action compared
with a tight social framework and loyalty to the
group
Masculinity–femininity
extent to which society is oriented toward money
and things (masculine) or toward people
(feminine)
Dimensions of National Culture
Long-term orientation
extent to which society is oriented toward the
long versus the short term
