Transforming an organization: Using models to foster a strategic conversation

California Management Review

Volumn , Issue 3, 1999, Pages 54-73

  Chesley, Julie A ^a   Wenger, Mike S ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039723168     PISSN: 00081256     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/41165997     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. Quotes are from interviews or field notes taken by both authors during a 19-month longitudinal case analysis of the National Reconnaissance Office.
2. Both authors played a role in the strategic planning process. The first author was an internal consultant, responsible for the development and implementation of the strategic planning process at the NRO. The second author was an external consultant, attending 75% of the strategic planning meetings during the 19-month period.
3. The National Reconnaissance Office, NRO Pamphlet, 1997.
4. Ibid.
5. Cargill Hall, The National Reconnaissance Office: A Brief History of its Creation and Evolution. Internal NRO Paper, 1998, p. 3.
6. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 1996).
7. Ibid., p. 10.
8. Henry Mintzberg, "Managing Government, Governing Management," Harvard Business Review, 74/3 (May/June 1996): 79.
9. Ibid., pp. 78-79.
10. The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) is a far-reaching attempt to develop more market-oriented environments and processes in the Federal Government agencies. However, even under this legislation, true market incentives will not predominate. Rather, executives will face a market surrogate that is mediated through a series of submissions to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and congressional committees. In this unfolding context, "market forces" will be indirect while "political forces" remain direct.
11. Increasingly, under a variety of "reinvention of Government" initiatives [Chief Financial Officers Act (CFO), Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), and the Chief Information Technology Act (CIO)] outcomes-oriented information systems are being created. However, it is still accurate to say that such data does not dominate the informational landscape.
12. Mintzberg (1996), op. cit.
13. Certainly, many non-government organizations are bureaucratic or have bureaucratic characteristics and this section is not meant to imply these qualities are the sole domain of federal agencies. However, since government agencies are some of the purest examples of bureaucratic culture, a more detailed analysis of them is instructive. In understanding the adaptation of strategic models to this field, this more detailed analysis is necessary. It is also perhaps interesting that little has changed in bureaucracy over the past hundred years.
14. Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1947)
15. For example, in the U.S. Air Force, "plans" is a specified career code. It should be noted, however, that technical, academic training in strategic business planning or organizational consulting is not a requirement for membership in this career field.
16. Henry Mintzberg, "The Machine Organization," in H. Mintzberg and J.B. Quinn, Readings in the Strategy Process (Upper Saddle, River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998), pp. 265-278.
17. Tongue and Quill: Communicating to in Air Force, AF Pamphlet 4-19, Washington, D.C., 1992, p. 153,
18. Henry Mintzberg, The Structuring of Organizations (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979).
19. A staff summary sheet is essentially a cover letter that has a place for each "affected" party to sign or "coordinate." If there is a disagreement, the typical response is to "not coordinate" and respond in writing as opposed to a conversation.
20. Rosemary Stewart, Managers and Their Jobs (London: MacMillan, 1967); Henry Mintzberg. "The Manager's Job-Folklore and Fact," Harvard Business Review, 53/4 (July/August 1975): 49-61.
21. Rosemary Stewart, Managers and Their Jobs (London: MacMillan, 1967); Henry Mintzberg. "The Manager's Job-Folklore and Fact," Harvard Business Review, 53/4 (July/August 1975): 49-61.
22. Vijay Govindarajan, "A Contingency Approach to Strategy Implementation at the Business-Unit Level: Integrating Administrative Mechanisms with Strategy," Academy of Management Journal, 31/4 (December 1988): 828-853; Anil Gupta and Vijay Govindarajan, "Business Unit Strategy, Managerial Characteristics, and Business Unit Effectiveness at Strategy Implementation," Academy of Management Journal, 27 (1984): 25-41.
23. Vijay Govindarajan, "A Contingency Approach to Strategy Implementation at the Business-Unit Level: Integrating Administrative Mechanisms with Strategy," Academy of Management Journal, 31/4 (December 1988): 828-853; Anil Gupta and Vijay Govindarajan, "Business Unit Strategy, Managerial Characteristics, and Business Unit Effectiveness at Strategy Implementation," Academy of Management Journal, 27 (1984): 25-41.
24. Raymond E. Miles and Charles C. Snow, Fit, Failure, and the Hall of Fame: How Companies Succeed or Fail (New York, NY: Free Press, 1994).
25. It is true that many of the executives felt as though they were changing the actual model. See Korzybski for his famous reminder that "the map is not the territory." Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 5th edition (Englewood, NJ: Institute of General Semantics, 1994).
26. Kaplan and Norton, op. cit.
27. Ibid., p. 25.
28. James B. Quinn, "Strategic Change: 'Logical Incrementalism,'" Sloan Management Review, 20/1 (Fall 1978): 7-21.
29. John P. Kotter, Leading Change (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996).
30. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York, NY: Granada Publishing, 1973); Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, Organizational Learning (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1978); Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York, NY: Doubleday/Currency, 1990).
31. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York, NY: Granada Publishing, 1973); Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, Organizational Learning (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1978); Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York, NY: Doubleday/Currency, 1990).
32. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York, NY: Granada Publishing, 1973); Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, Organizational Learning (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1978); Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York, NY: Doubleday/Currency, 1990).