Strategic Thinking and Organizational Architecture: A Snapshot

Use limited resources to have big impact Articulate, develop and test theory of change Focus resources on high-yield activity Help staff understand and commit to the Organization Clarify the organization work to external allies and clients Explain programs to donors and publics Create basis for learning from experience Build base for managing rapid change Strategic Thinking: The Basics

Social Vision: The “reality to be” Organization Mission: “Reason to be” or purpose Change Theory: Desired outcomes and pathways Strategy: Concepts for implementing change theories, choosing programs and allocating resources (“No’s”) Organization: Programs, architectured, alliances. Results: outputs, outcomes, impacts vs. stories vs. institutional positioning Learning systems: Integrate goals, performance indicators for operational and strategic learning Elements of Strategic Action

No strategic coherence without well- specified goals Specification means: dimensions of value defined tensions and conflicts identified priorities determined (Well-specified ≠ rigid) Defining Public Value

Snapshot of SGE tools

Strategic Management : What is it ? “The design and implementation of integrated strategies that creatively use the range of management tools to fulfill the mission of the agency and achieve the Organization goals.” To develop a strategy for an organization, senior managers must bring three elements into alignment: A strategy should be substantively valuable, meaning producing things of value to overseers, clients, and beneficiaries. It should be legitimate and politically sustainable, meaning able to keep attracting authority and money from the authorizing environment. And it should be operationally and administratively feasible, meaning being able to be accomplished by the organization. Senior managers need to improve and develop an organization’s capabilities in order to make a strategy feasible and the need to develop support to make the strategy sustainable. In public organization, the judgement of political sustainability is based on the examination of the values at stake in the organization’s work; the interests of legislators or other elected officials; and the views of interest groups. To judge operational feasibility, senior managers should use feasibility assessments among other tools. In a democratic society, analytic tools such as policy analysis, program evaluation and cost- benefit analysis can be used to inform elected leaders about what the public will is and what can be done to create public value.

Value Capacity Support The Strategic Management Triangle The Triangle can be used in an ongoing basis to: Monitor support: Scan the authorizing environment for changes to the collective, political aspirations that guide operations. Monitor Value: Search for emergent problems to which an organization might contribute part of a solution. And monitor operations: Review operations for new programs or processes that could improve performance.

Context for Strategic Management As the number and diversity of interacting organizations increase: Strategic equilibrium becomes: – More complex – More challenging to structure – Less stable (While potential for productivity, flexibility, and innovation can also rise.)

Strategic Equilibrium and Disequilibrium Organizations with little or no change in – goals – authorizing Environments and – operating Capacity are in strategic equilibrium Change in some elements + stability in other elements = strategic disequilibrium

Strategic Equilibrium and Disequilibrium Strategic equilibrium can be recovered by: – restoring the status quo ante in the element(s) that fell out of alignment – or by revising the other element(s) to be compatible with the destabilizing change – or by a combination of the two adjustments

Strategic Equilibrium and Disequilibrium Deliberate strategy change as special case Consciously alter definition of public value How progress happens But imposes obligation to accordingly: reconfigure operating capacity – restructure, renegotiate, or otherwise revise base of legitimacy and resources – reconfigure operating capacity

Authorizing Environment GoalOperating Capacity Authorizing Environment GoalOperating Capacity Authorizing Environment GoalOperating Capacity

Strategic Triangle Creating Value Legitimacy and Support Operational Capacity Strategy

The Assessment Process Defining the Outcomes Collecting the Data Making Use of the Data

Organizational Architecture InputsResults Partners, Allies Activities Structure Tasks Culture PeopleLeadership Strategy Environment Outputs Outcomes Impacts

Strategy & Stakeholders Creating Value Clients Governments Targets Legitimacy and Support Regulators Donors Publics Operational Capacity Board Staff Allies Supporters Strategy

Imagining success: Plausible, sustainable future Focus on outcomes and impacts Process involves many stakeholders Mapping pathways to outcomes Design back to preconditions for outcomes Map pathways to accomplish preconditions Eco-intelligence and sustainable systems Identify actors and dimensions of systems change Develop multi-actor alignment and collaborations Theories of Change

Strategy, Organization & Learning Mission Operational Capacity Operational Capacity Legitimacy & Support Legitimacy & Support Creating Value Creating Value Vision Organizational Learning System Client Outcomes Social Impacts Architecture Organization Outputs Programs External Allies New Strategy Strategy Change Theory

Organizational Configurations Simple Functional Divisional Federation Confederation Network/Movement

Generate design criteria Generate and evaluate grouping options Generate coordination requirements Identify and evaluate linking mechanisms Impact analysis and first choice design Identify issues for operational design Identify implementation issues Organization Design Process

Convene parties relevant to issues Articulate shared values and definitions Explore what parties bring to action Negotiate strategic directions Authorize leadership for joint action Agree on who does what to implement Develop expectations for monitoring progress and adapting to change Network Design Process?

architecture emphasis Values based  Architecture elements key? Organizational growth  Architecture change? Social change missions  Architecture emphases? Alliances/networks as Org configuration Emerging forms: associations, movements, confederations, federations, partnerships Constructing interorganizational values and stories Bridging leadership as emerging capacity Architecture Themes

Expand coverage  impact on more people Increase activities  horizontal/vertical integration and deeper impacts Indirect influence  change behavior of other actors to widen impacts Organizational sustainability: entrepreneurial  task teams  project org’n  program instit’n Scaling Up The Org Impacts

Integration via government program adoption; Joint ventures with other actors to expand; Training others so they deliver programs via other channels; Delegation and deputation  share staff, ideas; Spin-offs that create new organizations; and Organize local demand and community-based organizations to pursue self- help or advocacy Indirect Scaling Up

Multiple approaches to scaling up: Which most appropriate to organization and context? Scaling up challenges for Os: Internal: new capacities; culture changes; leadership demands: emerging stories? External: alliance building; change theories; relations to constituents; accountabilities; measuring impacts? Social change and demand for re-invention  primacy of organization and leader learning Issues in Scaling Up Impacts