Climate and strategy
Some people describe organisations in terms of warfare (objectives, goals), and organisational processes in warlike terminology (strategic planning, tactics). Others, who don't like the idea of having to go to war every day, prefer other more familial or paternal analogies.
However, there is no avoiding the existence of competition between and within organisations, and that humans love competition - judging by the strong support for sporting activities. Humans also love challenge, judging by the recreational activities we choose. Interestingly, sporting groups also use the same war-like terminology - strategies and tactics.
Perhaps, then, we can learn something by looking at military cases. For example, if a group of men is sent into the bush, what will happen?
Did you just make an assumption? In your mind's eye were they fully trained military combat personnel on a mission.
In fact, based on information you were given (a group of men is sent into the bush), not much of any value will happen. Outcomes might improve if they have goals - at least they will know why they are going. If they also have a plan, then it is more likely that the desired outcome will be delivered. It is even better if it is a strategic plan, with matching tactics and appropriate skills and abilities.
- Stratagem: artifice, trick(ery), device(s) for deceiving enemy.
- Strategic: Of, dictated by, serving the ends of, strategy; designed to disorganise the enemy's internal economy & to destroy morale.
- Strategy: Generalship, the art of war; management of an army in a campaign, art of so moving or disposing of troops, ships or aircraft as to impose upon the enemy the place & time & conditions for fighting preferred by oneself.
- Tactical: adroitly planning or planned in support of strategic operations.
- Tactics: art if disposing forces in actual contact with enemy, procedure calculated to gain some end, skilful device(s).
Let's examine this more closely. Consider two combat groups about to be sent into an aggressively hostile zone. One group is poorly trained, poorly prepared, and has vague goals. The other fully trained elite group has goals, objectives, strategies, contingencies and tactics all worked out.
- What will the climate be like within each group?
- Which group would you rather belong to?
- How does fear influence motivation?
- What about skills, and the clarity of how skills (group capability) match task (required capability)?
One can understand fear in a military engagement.
- What has been learned here about climate?
- What could the army do to create the most beneficial group climate?
If climate is about my perception - the way I feel about being here, what is felt at the indicidual level? To help explore this, consider two individuals in three situations. First they are combatants in national championships for martial arts, with high chance of pain or injury, but each looking forward to the experience - nervous, some fear, but wouldn't miss it. Now they're together and facing a mountain. Person A sees all the places you can fall from. Person B sees all the handholds and footholds and assesses the various tracks for reaching the top. Now, put them on the beach looking at white-caps and rough water with high wind. Person A grins while preparing the windsurfer, and B can't imagine anything more frightening. The different approaches to situations may be due to skills and abilities, and also due in some way to a personal characteristic to see the challenge and excitement rather than the danger and fear. Increasing stimulus increases excitement - to a point - then it becomes increasing stress. A little bit of fear can be exhilarating. But there is a point beyond which the challenge is terrifying, and that point varies between individuals, and between situations. The fact that someone may have a low fear threshold for X does not mean a low threshold for Y.
However, you can hardly have a one-person climate. But imagine a group of A's versus a group of B's at the mountain - then you have group climates. It also suggests how any one person contributes to group climate. The B people do not want any A's spoiling their group atmosphere, and vice versa. In other words, climate is of interest at personal, group, and organisational levels-
So climate is personal, and personal behaviours influence it, just as climate influences personal behaviour. It's a strong two-way relationship. So let's apply this to organisations and continue with the component - fear.
We don't often think about fear as an issue in organisations, yet climate instruments consistently detect fear, or variables related to fear, among respondents. There are many things to fear in an organisation. Ask.
- Assuming there is fear, what does that do for the climate?
- How does that climate impact motivation?
- What will that do to efforts by members to deliver high performance aimed at corporate goals and strategies?
We have already suggested the importance to climate of having clear strategies, so are there clear goals and strategies in your organisation?
By contrast, what chance for success is there for the organisation with opaque goals and a climate of fear or uncertainty?
So let's assume that your organisation has clear goals and strategies. What happens now?
If the organisation just rambles on as always, reactive and putting out fires while responding to ideas and whims, then having goals and strategies means nothing, and the climate will be one of confusion and lack of commitment. How can any member commit to an organisation that either doesn't know where it is going, or doesn’t follow its own map?
In having goals and strategies, it is as important to stop doing non-strategic acts as it is to start doing strategic ones. Too often, organisations spend resources on a project that was someone's idea, but it was never properly assessed for its strategic relevance, risks, or opportunity costs of time consumed. The people on that project know they are working on something that is merely a pet issue, and not really important in the scheme of things. How do they feel? What are they learning about the organisation? How important a contribution do they feel they make? Do they feel good at the end of the day? What sort of climate are they ‘feeling’?
Ideally, the organisation has a hierarchy of projects, all properly assessed for strategic importance and proportional resource demand. Assuming the organisation can do only so much, what are the criteria for starting or stopping a project? What provisions are there for compensating the greater psychological difficulty we have to exit a project than to start one? How does the organisation deal with the many vested but unimportant interests – when egos become more important than the organisation's goals? From those questions:
- How can an organisation protect people from feeling devalued - because they know they are wasting time on an unimportant project?
- How can an organisation stop a project, while protecting the ego of those whose future ideas may be withheld if they are psychologically hurt as ideas fail to perform well enough or lose relevancy?
These are climate issues because they impact climate.
- What is the policy for outsourcing, and what internal resources are needed to administer any outsourced activity? This is another climate issue.
Clear procedures help clarify climate variables. Unclear procedures introduce climate 'noise' - climate movements with unclear origins, and variations between silos that interpret policies differently.
In other words - strategy and climate interconnect strongly.
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