The Strategy of Leadership is Thinking, Vision, and Planning - The time to come Depends On It

Grammar speaks of events occurring in three plains. The past was, the future will happen, and we live now, the present. However, operating in the facts age, the age of instant global communication, makes the future now. Gates [1] wrote we are citizens of an facts society. He noted that past generations, and past societies found ways to procure information, get more work done, increase life spans, and improve their standards of living. Time was not as important in those past ages. A message from a ruler may take months to arrive by sea courier. The Pony Express was six days. Airmail was cross-country overnight. The time span between belief and activity are virtually unidentifiable today. Although leaders rely on group knowledge sharing, leaders who engage in strategic thinking, imagining events as happening rather than will happen, allows them to view the present as their personal and organizational future.

This paper considers how foremost strategic reasoning is for leaders who want to shape their future and the future of their environment. Strategic reasoning is the beginning point for creating vision. Former planning gives way to flexible organizational structures that turn “on the fly.”

Strategy in past generations allowed leaders time for thinking, sensing a vision, clarifying the vision, articulating it to begin considering activity plans. Accepting that the future is no longer an event to happen later, this paper explores how leaders think, envision, articulate, and plan. How do leaders continue to use strategy to their advantage in a rapidly changing global environment? The write back is in the age of possibilities [2]. Today, as never before we are free from Former bonds of work, we are free to pick our futures as well as shape them to suit our own desires and needs.

This age is an prolongation of Gates’ facts society. We have the quality to pick our reality in a way that never before existed. In the past, a baker’s son became a baker. However, many leaders of the past came from unexpected places. The Biblical King David was the young son tending sheep (1 Samuel 16:11) and Jesus was just the carpenter’s son whose mom we know (Matthew 13:55) [3]. Truman had leadership thrust upon him. These habitancy saw a point on the horizon but events changes their vision. The age of possibilities allows us to rewrite our future as events dictate.

Accepting that we can turn as events dictate suggests that there is a less linear buildings in this image and a more chaotic non-linear structure. Sanders [4] describes an organizational buildings as a known introductory condition but the future appears random. Using the model of the “Lorenz Attractor,” she presents a view of interacting and interrelated parts that appear disorderly until a closer inspection reveals the spiraling order underground in the model. The Gates’ facts society and the Taylor and Wacker age of possibilities do not depend on a linear progression of belief and activity and Sanders holds the non-linear nature of the new science of strategic reasoning allows us to understand natural order on its own terms.

Strategy

Does strategy have some mythical or mystical property? Leaders and leadership use the word in many contexts, possibly not nothing else but acknowledging what strategy is. Therefore, a simple working definition of strategy for this paper is the deliberate means of attaining an outcome, being visionary.

Mintzberg, et al [5] explains that strategies inevitably have advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of setting direction is charting a course; however, the disadvantage is narrowing vision, hiding dangers. The advantage of focusing exertion is coordination of activity; however, the disadvantage is groupthink. Having a definition of the club provides understanding of the organization; however, the definition may hide the complexity of the supporting systems. Having a strategy that provides consistency establishes order in a way that reduces ambiguity; however, creative groups appear to control with puny or no consistency.

Strategy involves paradoxes as the above paragraph suggests. One paradox tells us the story of answers and questions, once you think you have all the answers, person changes all the questions. Taylor and Wacker state this paradox as, “The more you are right, the more wrong you will be.” This contradiction confuses the reader, if you are right, how can you be wrong? How? The speed of knowledge accelerated beyond our quality to suck up it in our Former studying pattern.

Another paradox for visionary leaders involves predicting the future. Leaders who are flourishing predictors of the future act as agents destabilizing the present. Taylor and Wacker by comparison that today’s realities and tomorrows expectations collide. The allocation of resources between present and future “produce a heavy future-based political qoute with huge consequences for the present.”

Strategy at Work

The State of Nebraska recently made National news with the passage of Lb1024 that, in effect, created segregated school sub-districts in Omaha. The bill was the Unicameral’s way to defeat intercity lawsuits claiming “One City – One School District.” The City of Omaha annexed some small suburban communities to its west, provides police, fire, and city services to these communities; however, the communities remained independent school districts.

The City of Bellevue annexed some clean revising Districts (Sid) to its west, provides police, fire and city services to these incorporated Sids. Former mayors and city councils of Bellevue and Papillion drew arbitrary boarders marking the fringes of the two cities school districts in, what were then, unincorporated zones. habitancy increase attached itself close to Bellevue. Now, Bellevue’s city limits extend beyond the school district boarders. Therefore, Bellevue claims “One City – One School District.”

By passing this bill, Senator Chambers [6] acknowledged formal segregation of the districts. Lb1024 created two super-districts, one in Omaha, and one in Bellevue. In Omaha, the super-district has three independent sub-districts. The independent sub-districts have authority over trainer hiring, measures of teacher/student success under federal No Child Left Behind, and administration of their own budget. The super-district has scholastic authority over the smaller sub-districts.

The strongest supporter of the Lb1024 is the State’s strongest proponent of desegregation. Why did Senator Ernie Chambers of the State’s 11th district maintain the bill? He claimed the Omaha school district is already segregated. Segregation re-occurred with the end of bussing in 1999. Yet, no Omaha high school is more than 48 percent African American.

Bellevue Mayor Jerry Ryan acknowledged the drain on city funds fighting to redraw school district lines. The fight in Bellevue and Papillion is over federal dollars to schools with a habitancy of children of soldiery families. Offutt Air Force Base is located near Bellevue and soldiery dependent children attend elementary and secondary schools in both cities. Redrawing district lines would succeed in more federal money to the Bellevue group School District.

Strategic reasoning and Vision

Reading the paragraphs above may leave the reader asking, “What were they thinking?” Recall the paradox of predicting the future affects the present in adverse ways, yet flourishing leaders control as though the future is now.

Another view is that nothing turns out exactly as expected. This may leave leaders in an activity quandary: Strategic reasoning in the midst of shifting paradigms servers to help organizations “identify, write back to, and affect changes in its environment.”

Strategic reasoning allows leaders to think in terms of opportunities to innovate and affect their future and the future of their organization. Strategic reasoning aids in abandonment of policies and procedures that are outdated, obsolete, or ineffective.

Strategic reasoning is having an awareness of what has not yet taken shape, having foresight. Vision has a facet that is an personel quality and behavior and it can be a process or activity in business. On a macro level, Vision is a global practice. Note, reaching a macro level must pass from micro – individual, through mezzo – organizational, to reach macro. Vision starts with the personel leader looking or sensing something best [7].

Foresight is more than vision; it is visionary. Being a visionary leader means being spirited and questioning rather than looking answers. Mintzberg, et al (1998) calls upon visionary leaders to control on emotional and spiritual resources, values, aspirations, and commitment. Leaders need a reasoning image, build a reasoning model of a desirable future state. The visionary state is as simple as a dream or complex as a written document outlining the dream in measurable steps.

Visionary leaders must next translate the dream of the desirable future state into a Vision they can share with the organization. Sharing a Vision must be proactive, must be like a theater performance. Mintzberg, et al addresses performance by the leader as a rehearsal. Exercise is the practice of the vision, studying all they can about the vision. Upon becoming comfortable in rehearsal, the leader must openly perform the vision. performance brings a dream to life; however, performance has no value without the attending audience. The organizational audience views the performance while feeling empowered to mimic the performance. Organizational mimicking of the performance serves as a beginning point for transformation to a higher state of consciousness, becoming, as Senge [8] describes, a studying organization.

Bellevue, Nebraska is the third largest city in the state. Eight years ago, Jerry Ryan made his first run for Bellevue Mayor winning an selection against a favorite mayor. Bellevue’s habitancy in 1998 was about 29,000. Improvements in transportation, cost of housing and housing developments, and increase in retail and commercial ventures has caused an explosion in habitancy to practically 50,000 with an extended sphere of services into not yet annexed developments of an supplementary habitancy of about 15,000.

In the May 2006 primary, Mayor Ryan [9] ran against a field of opponents. Mayor Ryan ran on the ideal that Bellevue has reached a size that requires a full time mayor devoted to the city. Opponents, all in their seventies, do not share his view. Mayor Ryan won the majority of Former votes telling the city his vision. In interview with Mayor Ryan, he expressed how hard it is to run a city of 50,000 part-time. “Citizens think I run the city. They are not aware that it is the City Council that approves all action. And, the City Council doesn’t want a full time mayor,” said Ryan in interview. “If there is one thing I’ve failed to do,” said Ryan, “is adequately share my reasoning and Vision within the council.”

In the “One City – One School District” battle in Omaha, the school district argued that incorporation of suburban districts into Omaha would originate a broader tax base, allow for creation of magnet schools throughout the district, and more equitably share resources. Senator Chambers, in maintain of Lb1024, argued that schools already segregated would have more menagerial control over their districts to originate educational opportunities for racially definite schools by racially definite administrators. Opposition to Lb1024 was high before its passing, the Governor faced strong opposition for signing it, the Attorney general believes it is in violation of federal law and unconstitutional and Omaha’s most famed citizen, Warren Buffet, expressed his strong opposition.

Senator Chambers is the only African-American state senator who is controversial and outspoken. Many of his claims include racially spirited statements against police, school administrators, teachers, and fellow senators. By contrast, to Mayor Ryan, Senator Chambers does not appear to have a Vision based on strategic thinking. Senator Chambers’ term in the Unicameral ends in 2008 and he cannot run again because of imposed term limits.

Morgan [10] offers some thoughts on group construction of reality. What he writes is habitancy have images of themselves and these images unfold into their reality. Two leaders identified thus far have diversely distinct views of reality. One holds a Vision of what can be for the city while the other fights against turn using deeply entrenched assumptions of the power of others to shape events.

Another person, a division head of a large First Data Corporation region [11], offered some understanding into strategic reasoning and being visionary. In an impromptu interview, she held that having a focus on what is inherent helped her rise within a company at a time when it was having serious leadership troubles. When everybody else was seeking safety, she sought innovation-providing direction when it appeared there was none. Her member services region is the western United States, Canada, and Mexico. She said, “I thrive on chaos. When things look the most confused, I see my division diversified, flattened, with empowered subordinate managers.”

Our dialogue continued on chaos with Kim conceding she manages chaos within set organizational plans and policies. This lead to her admission that she is more ordered in her expectations and spends more time planning than reasoning and creating vision.

Strategic Planning

Hill and Jones [12] discuss strategic planning with the same cautions of Davis [13]. One belief of planning is doing so under uncertainties. In life and business, the only definite is uncertainty. Organizations cannot plan for the future because it is unpredictable. Other observation is planning cannot be a top-management function alone. This “ivory tower” planning may succeed in senior leaders reasoning in a vacuum, being enthusiastic about a plan and having no operational realities. Finally, strategic planning often suffers because planners have a short-range view of the current environment missing the dynamics of the contentious environment.

Mintzberg, et al devotes a section to “Planning’s Unplanned Troubles.” They by comparison that planning establishes inflexibility. They maintain the assertion presented above with the fallacy of predetermination. This fallacy says organizations are able to predict the direction of their environment, are able to Exercise control over the environment, “or naturally to assume its stability.” “Because pathology is not synthesis, strategic planning has never been strategy making.”

Reverse course a little, planning is not a bad thing when used in cohort with strategic reasoning and visionary leadership. It is applying the controlling element strategy to planning that causes problems. Morgan argues in favor of plans and planning when created in a visionary framework that can evolve as circumstances change. What they insinuate in relating the tail of the “Strategic Termites” is unpredictability of organizational structure. An organization’s leader does not need a strategic plan to levy order. Order, like in a termite colony, emerges in an evolutionary way. Planning is not guided by plans rather by a sense of know what the club wants to finally achieve. Ideas, action, and events occur separately but self-organizing yet apparently disorganized groups of termites seize the occasion to set in motion change.

The future Depends On It

Seeing the future depends on foresight. Having a future view and strategically reasoning of the future creates a new paradigm, part of the paradoxes already discussed. One old paradigm suggests future belief as a prediction and development of plans based on the prediction. Manufacture plans establishes course important to reach the staggering future. When the predictions fail to materialize an club scrambles to recover. Other paradigm is the invention of the future. This means habitancy both by comparison and become constrained by the structures they enact and turn through practice. Gaspar [7] refers to the work of Mintzberg, et al, saying the old paradigms do not work in future reasoning organizations. She tells us we must integrate a strategy that includes patterns and perspectives with planning and positioning.

Take a view of American associates 100 years ago. Of the top 12 associates 100 years ago, ten dealt in selling commodities. Today, of the top 12 U.S. Companies, three deal in commodities. The remaining nine associates deal in services, manufacturing, and high technology [14]. The only thing definite is turn and company leaders must learn to cope with it in order to carry on it. Coping with turn and managing it mean businesses can behalf from it. The future of company is knowledge driven. Countries must be smart, associates must be smart, and habitancy must be smart.

Countries, companies, and habitancy must be equally smart at the same time. To win the future game, each of the three must anticipate and adapt to turn in order to carry on it effectively. Mayor Ryan admitted that government is slow to change. By example, he cited the city council established a steering committee to study either the city needed to spend money for computers in the mayor’s office. The city has a web proximity but the city council did not adopt an intra- and inter-city email principles until the steering committee received confirmation from surrounding cities of their principles usage. The mayor is 72; by contrast, the mean age of the city council is about 63. Mayor Ryan recognizes the value of technology and aggressively seeks younger citizens to enter city government. He hopes transmit reasoning younger habitancy will drive the risk adverse council toward active and aggressive risk management.

Senator Chambers is the longest serving Senator in the Nebraska Unicameral. He is 69 years old and suffered racial slurs and isolation from fellow senators when he took office. Slurs and threats, chalked on his capitol office door, remain and he considers these a badge. He does not appear on the senate floor in suit and tie. He wears blue jeans and sweat shirts in protest to conformity. However, Senator Chambers seems to exist in an era when racism and segregation were the norm. He rarely seeks coalition with other senators preferring to be a voice of defiance [15].

These two leaders view the future differently. While one hopes to perform the future by recruiting younger transmit reasoning habitancy into the political system, the other remains rooted in the past. Neither manages the future proactively but coming the future based on present and past experiences not through facts seeking, strategic thinking, and visionary reasoning modeling.

Conclusion

This paper discussed strategy, strategic reasoning and Vision making, planning, and the future. These are not detach activities although the discussion presents them individually. By recognizing the Lorenz Attractor as a spiral of interacting parts of an organization, one can also find this model fits a non-linear process of thinking, vision, and planning. looking the future as an evolving present helps leaders realize that rigid policies based on formalized strategic plans inhibit response to change.

Strategic reasoning and Vision creation suggests that leaders continually test their reasoning model with new reasoning and questioning – progressively looping thinking, vision, and new facts into new thinking. This cycle process allows leaders to anticipate disruptions in the company cycle. Leaders who request themselves asking, “what if …” know “what if …” These leaders are future seeking and organizations employing these leaders are future seeking studying organizations prepared to turn before turn occurs.

This paper does not deny the value of planning as part of a strategic process. However, rigid planning that does not hypothesize the shifting horizon of organizational development leaves the company questioning, “What happened,” rather than “what’s happening.”

Foresight allows for strategic management, forecasting and positioning of an organization. The outcome from Vision in company is the staggering future becoming an definite future.

References:

1. Gates, B. (1996). The Road Ahead. New York: Penguin Books.

2. Taylor, J., Wacker, W. With Means, H. (2000). The Visionary’s Handbook: Nine Paradoxes that will Shape the future of Your Business. New Youk: Harper-Collins Publishers, Inc.

3. Holy Bible. New International Version. Bible Online. Retrieved from http://www.bible.com.

4. Sanders, T. I. (1998). Strategic reasoning and the New Science: Planning in the midst of chaos, complexity, and change. New York: The Free Press.

5. Mintzberg, M. Ahlstrand, B. & Lampel, J. (1998). Strategy Safari: A guided tour through the wilds of strategic Management. New York: The Free Press.

6. Gaspar, J. (2005, August 21-24). Corporate Vision – an exertion to listen to the voices futures’ generations in the strategy Manufacture process. future Studies Department, Corvinus University of Budapest. Retrieved June 15, 2006 from http://www.budapestfutures.org/downloads/abstracts/Gaspar%20Judit%20Abstract.pdf#search='judit%20gaspar%20corporate%20foresight'

7. J. Ryan (personal communication, April 28, 2006) in discussion of mayoral leadership strategy in a metropolitan community.

8. Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The art & practice of the studying organization. New York: Currency and Doubleday.

9. Morgan, G. (1993). Imaginization: The Art of Creative Management. Newbury Park: Sage Publishing, Inc.

10. Hill, C. W. L. & Jones, G. R. (1998). Strategic Management: An integrated approach. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

11. Davis, S. (1996). future Perfect. Reading, Ma: Addison-Wesley.

12. Ong Teck Mong, T. (2006, May 7). Anticipating and Managing Change: The Key to future Success. Asian invent of administration 37th Commencement Ceremonies. Retrieved June 16, 2006 from [http://www.aim.edu.ph/home/announcementc.asp?id=741].

13. Ernie Chambers. (2006). Wikipedia. Retrieved May 31, 2006 from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Champers].

14. Blackman, D. A. And Henderson, S. (2004). How Vision creates unforeseen futures: the role of doubting. Futures, 36. 253-266.

15. Johnson, T. A. (2000). An Intellectual and Political Biography of Nebraska State Senator Ernest Chambers: Activist, Statesman, and Humanist, 1937-. Plains Humanities Alliance: Events. Retrieved May 31, 2006 from [http://libr.unl.edu:2000/plains/events/seminars/johnson1.html]

16. Nadler, D. A. And Tushman, M. L. (1997). contentious by Design: The Power of Organizational Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press.

17. Somasegar (No First Name) (2006, January 21). Strategic Thinking. Retrieved June 2, 2006 from http://blogs.msdn.com/User/Profile.aspx?UserId=3644.

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