Introduction
Strategic planning in government and non-profit organizations should ensure the existence of an effective mechanism that successfully adopts changes, collaborations, and communities. Strategic planning should address specific aspects that affect the organizational approach to changes (De-Andreis, 2019). These factors include the ability to identify and address crucial issues facing the organization and the problem of competing values that affect the corporate vision and goals. Strategic planning also addresses stakeholders’ needs internally and externally, addresses external forces and trends that affect organizational missions, and ensures the effective involvement of management and elected officials with the necessary support (De-Andreis, 2019). Public and non-profit organizations use strategic planning to ensure that they deal with critical issues that affect continued commitment to the plan, remain focused and action-oriented, and focus on immediate decision implementation to enhance the organization’s position in the future. Therefore, strategic planning allows the organization to address emerging issues, continue pursuing its objectives, and secure its position for the future. This paper aims to discuss the crucial elements in the strategy change cycle as a factor that ensures companies have the requisite plans to implement changes effectively and address organizational issues.
Steps for the Strategy Change Cycle
Initiate and Agree on a Strategic Planning Process
The first step of the strategy change cycle is initiation and agreement on the planning process. The step entails negotiation of the agreed overall strategic planning efforts and primary planning steps (Bryson, 2011). Government and non-profit entities have different stakeholders playing unique roles that ensure organizational processes occur according to objectives and goals. Each stakeholder is essential when changes occur (De-Andreis, 2019). However, not every stakeholder can be involved in the critical change processes due to the need to ensure that the organization continues to function. The first step ensures that all the crucial stakeholders are aware of the changes required in an organization and agree on the efforts to ensure the effective implementation of changes. The process also ensures that the parties involved in implementing the strategic plan are part of the primary planning steps (George et al., 2019). Part of the agreement stakeholders make in the first step includes the vision to be achieved, preparation of progress reports, resource allocation, identification of barriers, and development of committees responsible for various issues in the company. The organization has to ensure that stakeholder concerns are addressed to enhance outcomes from the process through support and reduced opposition and barriers.
Identify Organizational Mandates
The second step entails consideration of the functions and mandates of an organization. Mandates are the pressures, restrictions, requirements, limitations, and pressures that must be addressed (Bryson, 2011). It entails the primary tasks that the entity was created to achieve. Strategic planning requires stakeholders to be aware of the organizational mandates when implementing changes to ensure that the functions are not interfered with or the entity’s purpose is not changed during the implementation of changes (De-Andreis, 2019). Organizations have formal and informal mandates that stakeholders should be aware of and work to ensure their achievement. Formal mandates include policies, charters, legislation, contracts, articles, and ordinances that outline the organization’s purpose and functions (Bryson, 2011). Organizational members are also required to know the informal mandate of an organization, which is usually political. However, most individuals in organizations do not know the corporate mandates. The change cycle requires all the stakeholders to understand these factors to ensure that the proposed interventions meet expectations formally and informally. It is vital to reduce any resistance that may emerge and enhance support for the process.
Clarify Organizational Mission and Values
The organizational mission and values guide stakeholders on the goals to be achieved through the processes and efforts they make. The mission and mandate provide the social justification for a government of a non-profit entity (Bryson, 2011). Public values are crucial in government efforts since the goal is to serve the public. Therefore, any changes should be aligned with the values and mission of the organization to ensure that efforts to achieve objectives do not interfere. Non-profit and government entities are a means to an end, and the outcomes are always crucial in their functions since they are always measured based on their achievements. Strategic planning is goal-oriented and entails continually acquiring feedback on processes and operations and a learning process that aims to ensure enhancements in every step (George et al., 2019). Clarifying organizational mission and values ensures that an organization reduces conflict that may emerge from change by ensuring that the change aligns with its objectives. The step identifies the significance of stakeholder support and aims to enhance collaboration and support for the proposed change.
Assess the External and Internal Environments to Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
The introduction of any change in an organization aims to address existing issues or improve functions and processes to achieve higher efficiency and productivity. The internal and external environments are vital in identifying and adopting alterations in an organization due to their influence on an entity (Bryson, 2011). The external environment provides planners with the opportunities and threats they should consider. These are factors that they cannot control but can mitigate their impacts or exploit benefits (Abd-Razak et al., 2020). The internal environment consists of strengths and weaknesses that planners should determine to ensure the introduction of sufficient measures to manage change implementation effectively. The assessment is essential in developing strengths and improving performance by identifying weaknesses and threats that will be addressed during change implementation. It is an opportunity for the implementation team to monitor important stakeholders who directly influence the entity and measure their impacts and role when change is implemented (Fernandes et al., 2019). The fourth step requires the change implementation team to be aware of the internal and external environment to ensure any issues are addressed, and opportunities are taken when they emerge.
Identify the Strategic Issues Facing the Organization
The fifth step is when the issues that require changes are identified and measured based on the values, mission, mandates, and other factors that affect organizational functions. Any institution faces several challenges that are either controllable or non-controllable. Strategic planning aims to ensure that the entity has measures in place to address the issues that emerge to facilitate continued service delivery or production (George et al., 2019). The step requires the stakeholders responsible for addressing challenges in an organization to provide a statement of a strategic issue. The statement should contain a brief address of the problem, a list that makes the issue available, and a statement of the outcomes if previous interventions were adopted and failed (Bryson, 2011). Stakeholders responsible should use the account of the challenge to convince everyone in the organization about its significance and the need for their contribution to addressing the issue. Various issues can affect an organization, and the organization should be able to determine the most urgent ones that require immediate attention and those that can be addressed later.
Formulate Strategies to Manage the Issues
Identifying strategic issues aims to help develop effective interventions to address the challenges. Strategies are created to address emerging problems to avoid interferences with organizational processes (Gutama & Pujawan, 2019). Developing a strategic plan requires considering various factors, including identifying practical alternatives to the challenges and identifying barriers or constraints that will prevent the achievement of the intervention. The team will then present proposals on how to resolve the problems with consideration of the identified barriers (Bryson, 2011). An action plan is then implemented to ensure that the selected intervention is implemented. Most interventions are adopted over long periods, but some require immediate integration into the organization to address the issues. The last step is the continued assessment of the progress and outcomes of the changes implemented to determine their effectiveness and the need for further interventions. Each strategic plan should contain these steps to ensure effective solutions are adopted. Various approaches exist for government and non-profit entities to address their issues. Organizational assessments should be done to determine the most effective strategies based on the firm’s attributes.
Review and Adopt the Strategies or Strategic Plan
The seventh step of the cycle requires the team to assess the selected strategic plan and implement it to address the issue. Implementation of the strategic plan is a crucial aspect of the strategic planning process since it ensures that the entity can address its problems (George et al., 2019). The selected strategic plan may need approval from relevant stakeholders, including the administration. Any significant changes in a firm require approval to ensure that they align with the primary strategic plan in the organization. Adopting the strategic plan is done based on the guidelines provided and in accordance with the organizational objectives. Implementation should include all relevant stakeholders to ensure holistic adoption and the ability to address any concerns that emerge (Bryson, 2011). Inclusivity is essential in any intervention implementation in organizations since the achievement of success relies on the contribution of everyone in the company.
Establish an Effective Organizational Vision
Organizations should establish effective visions after adopting the strategic plan to ensure that all functions move toward the desired direction. The entity’s vision is the basis of the one developed after adoption. At this point, a vision’s role is to ensure that all efforts and actions happening during the period that the strategy is being implemented will contribute towards the organization’s established goals (Bryson, 2011). A vision is also vital after implementation since several change cycles can be implemented before one works, making it essential to wait until an effective cycle is identified.
Develop an Effective Implementation Process
Implementing the strategic plan is crucial because it is the culmination of all the previous steps. It entails allocating roles and responsibilities to different stakeholders based on the needs of the process (George, 2020). Expected outcomes and specific milestones are also identified at this stage: action steps, implementation schedules, required resources and their sources, communication processes, reviews, and accountability processes (Bryson, 2011). The process requires that all the parties who are part of the strategic implementation process have specific roles to accomplish and that the process has the necessary resources and structure for effective implementation.
Reassess the Strategies and the Strategic Planning Process
Assessment of the strategic plan and processes is essential after implementation. Evaluation is vital as it gives the team an overview of their methods and determines the effectiveness of their efforts. Every team or organizational effort is measured through their results and the processes used to achieve the outcomes (Mori et al., 2018). The results from the implementation will be a clear indicator of the effectiveness of the strategic plan and the adopted intervention. It will also be crucial in ensuring that the team identifies shortcomings in their efforts and whether there is a need for interventions (Bryson, 2011). The assessments can help the strategic planning team to work on continuous improvement of the strategic plan by improving their weaknesses.
Conclusion
The strategy change cycle is a step-by-step process that an organization uses to implement the relevant interventions to address prevalent issues. The approach acknowledges that organizations face several problems that require changes and solutions consistently. Government and non-profit organizations are created to address social issues. Most organizations undergo several challenges that have to be addressed constantly. The change cycle relies on the organizational goals, values, mission, and vision to ensure that the entity has the proper structure to succeed when introducing changes. It provides managers with the most effective approach to ensure they can plan for challenges, identify issues, and adopt and implement solutions with a high probability of success. Therefore, adopting the strategy change cycle is vital in addressing organizational issues through a structured approach that can be adopted in any government or non-profit organization.
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