Strategy Crafting And Excution

The McKinsey Survey was an informing article which made sense for our course study. There were several points that were stressed in this article. The three key points that caught my attention were:

1. Who decides? In other words, who participates in planning a companyÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs strategy? The article showed that more than half companies in this survey were let their strategies made by a small senior group which including the CEO or equivalent. However, I feel a good strategy should be decided by more managers and employees at more levels of management. Companies need to ensure more evenly distributed participation.

2. People believe that HR department generally plays an important support role in strategic planning. But it showed that most of the companies lack integration between their strategic planning groups and their human resource groups.

3. Communication within the departments is important to an organization in strategic planning. Good communication can make planning and execution efficiently.

I believe the key points in this article are related and similar to the readings in chapter one and two. They both addressed the key elements of strategic planning, the importance of execution and communication and also some shortages by different approaches. The McKinsey article more focused on reality and different business levels. The text focuses more on the theory. Chapter one focuses on the importance of having a strong strategy and effective implementation. Chapter two focuses on how a strategy should be developed, who participates in the process, and how to successfully and effectively implement the strategy. However, I found this article discussed a little more about the role of HR department than the text. After reading both of the article and the text, I feel that strategic planning is really important to a company and the approaches to make the planning and execution success is valuable to study.