For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS
Let me share with you some gems of thought from the book,
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt, described as “one of the world’s
most influential thinkers on strategy and management.” He is considered by the
prestigious The Economist “as one of
the twenty-five living persons who have had the most influence on management
and corporate practice.”
Another magazine, McKensey
Quarterly, profiled him uniquely as “strategy’s strategist,” to further
stress his significant contribution to strategy formulation not only by giant
corporations but also by relatively small organizations in the educational and
not-for-profit worlds.
I chanced upon the book while looking for something that
could be put to good use in this continuing saga to advocate and demonstrate
how to address effectively the ever-growing drug menace in our midst.
Let us start with what he says on page 108 of the book’s
paperback edition: “No matter how desirable it might be to stop the use of
illegal drugs, it is not a proximate objective because it is not feasible
within the present legal and law-enforcement framework. Indeed, the enormous
efforts directed at this objective may only drive out the small-time smuggler,
raise the street price, and make it even more profitable for the sophisticated
drug cartels.”
He argues here for identifying a narrower and, therefore, a
more winnable objective. Thus he observes that “every organization faces a
situation where the full complexity and ambiguity of the situation is daunting.”
The noted strategist asserts: “An important duty of any leader is to absorb
a large part of that complexity and ambiguity, passing on to the organization a
simpler problem – one that is solvable. Many leaders fail badly at this
responsibility, announcing ambitious goals without resolving a good chunk of ambiguity
about the specific obstacles to be overcome.”
For him, to be a responsible leader is “more than a
willingness to accept the blame.” To be such a leader means setting proximate
objectives and handing the organization a problem it can actually solve.”
Earlier at the start of Chapter 7, he asserts that “one of a
leader’s most powerful tools is the creation of a good proximate objective –
one that is close enough at hand to be feasible.” He says a proximate objective
“names a target that an organization can reasonably be expected to hit, even
overwhelm.”
He observes: “Many writers on strategy seem to suggest that
the more dynamic the situation, the farther ahead a leader must look. This is illogical.
The more dynamic the situation, the poorer your foresight will be. Therefore,
the more uncertain and dynamic the situation, the more proximate a strategic objective must be.”
The author adds: “The proximate objective is guided by
forecasts of the future, but the more uncertain the future, the more its
essential logic is … not of looking far ahead,” but rather of “taking a strong
position and creating options” to address current problems.
Rumelt cites the lesson to be learned from the game of chess:
“One does not win a chess game by always selecting moves that are directly
aimed at trying to mate the opponent or even trying to win a particular piece.
For the most part, the aim of a move is to find positions for one’s pieces that
(a) increase their mobility, that is, increase the options open to the them and
decrease the freedom of operation of the opponent’s pieces, and (b) impose
certain relatively stable patterns on the board that induce enduring strength
for oneself and enduring weakness for the opponent.”
While reading this chapter on proximate objectives, I was
actually breaking down in my head the myriad tasks and key players involved in
the so-called war on drugs. I realized the need to define proximate or feasible
objectives at each level of engagement in this campaign and to cascade down to
the lower levels, e.g. local government, community, household, the concern to reduce
the demand for drugs and simultaneously on the problem piece by piece rather
than have all this noise and pronouncements at the higher or macro levels about
the same boring messages on the evils of drug use without specifying proximate
or feasible objectives at each level to win this war.
Indeed we must zero in on those pockets of opportunities at
each level and achieve victories by defining actionable and winnable objectives.
As in many advocacies and campaigns, this will require leadership by those who
are supposed to govern us at each level. If this is wanting, then we just hope
that an enlightened citizenry and any of existing institutions, such as the
Church, civil society or the local business community, which is severely
affected by the impact of drug addiction on the economy, may take such
leadership role and adopt more effective ways to deal with the social problem which
is fast developing as a major crisis in our midst.
Hence, the need for us ordinary mortals most affected by the
crisis is to know a little bit about strategy in the hope that most of us can
be active participants in this war we must win for us and future generations.
On this matter, I can only contribute some precious lessons
from this book I have found useful in clarifying good strategy from a bad one
from someone who has had “a lifetime of experience at strategy work- as a
consultant to organizations, as a personal adviser, as a teacher and as a
researcher.”
Let me summarize some of these lessons from this book -
First, a good strategy “acknowledges the challenges being
faced and provides an approach to overcoming them. And the greater the
challenge, the more a good strategy focuses and coordinates efforts to achieve
a powerful competitive punch or problem-solving effect.”
Hence, it is more than the usual exhortation to achieve a
goal or vision. It involves so much more. It must not be equated with success or
an organization’s ambition or goal. Strategy to be a useful tool should not be
confused with “ambition determination, inspirational leadership, and
innovation.”
I find this definition
quite useful: “Ambition is drive and zeal to excel. Determination is commitment
and grit. Innovation is discovery and engineering of new ways to do things.
Inspirational leadership motivates people to sacrifice their own and the common
good.”
Strategy is often confused with goal setting. The author
says: “Strategy is about how an organization will move forward. Doing strategy
is figuring how to advance the organization’s interests. Of course, a leader
can set goals and delegate to others the job of figuring out what to do. But
that is not strategy. If that is how the organization runs, let’s skip the spin
and be honest – call it goal setting.”
In this sense, strategy is linked to action or a set of
actions considered vital to address specific
obstacles or problems. A good
strategy, according to Rumelt, has an essential logical structure consisting of
diagnosis, a guiding principle and coherent action.
Once we get familiar with these three components which he
calls the kernel of strategy, we are in a better position to achieve specific goals
in pursuit of a mutually-agreed vision. Applied in the current situation in
Bohol and the country as a whole, faced with disintegration of family and
community cohesiveness due to the growing dominance of illegal drug use, it is
important that ordinary citizens and their organizations learn the basics of strategy
formulation.
Their vigilance must seek the only remedy left, aside from
localized actions, which is “to demand more from those who lead.”
As the book says: “More than charisma and vision, we must
demand good strategy” from those who lead or those who pretend to lead us against
a social malady too obvious to be ignored.
#Boholdrugabuseproblem
NMP/05 Feb 2016/7.41
a.m.
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