1. Introduction
Strategic planning is the determination of the direction of an organization to follow within a given duration of time. It focuses on the details of how it will achieve given objectives and the means by, which the organization will determine if it got to the projected position or not. Strategic planning focuses on the entire organization and through organization development there is assurance of employee performance, and development for the overall development of an organization. The success of a strategic plan depends on the leadership of the organization focusing on different perspectives, approaches and models concurrent to the organization culture and the complexities of the environment of the organization’s operation (Van de Ven, & Sun, 2011). Other influencers are such as the expertise of the strategic planners as well as the organization sizes. Through strategic planning, organizations are capable of making of fundamental decisions and choices for goals it should accomplish. Strategic planning follows an analysis of the structure, governance, program mix, services mix, staff, resources and collaborations (Decker, Durand, Mayfield, McCormack, Skinner & Perdue, 2012).
The analysis plays a vital role by offering the organization a chance of perceiving the positions requiring change within the organization for achievement of goals and objectives. Therefore, through a strategic plan, an organization develops a blueprint outlining a vision for its future, the organizations strengths and weaknesses, the nature of the contemplated growth and development change for the future, sequence of the formulated change, the team in charge of developing the change and the required resources for the completion of the projected change. Unsuccessful implementation of organizational change is not a new phenomena and it can be very costly to an organization (Van de Ven & Sun, 2011). The implications of such failure may vary but at any point, they can serve as setbacks to the resources and reputation of the company, hence, heavily weigh on its success. It is necessary for researchers to conduct more studies on the issues, which lead to failure of implementation of strategic plans. This comes from the fact that there is no adequate information regarding the reasons for organization development failures (Decker, Durand, Mayfield, McCormack, Skinner & Perdue, 2012).
2. Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of this study is for the creation of understanding of the importance of strategic planning. The focus will be on organizational development and in search of its promotion of successful performance of activities in the organization. The study with further seek to create a deeper understanding of the areas of strategic planning, which are relevant to organizational development. With the knowledge of the importance of organization development to the life or organizations, the main interest of the study will be to determine the exact sectors that always require the influence of strategic planning as a focus in the future of an organization. For that reason, it will be important learning how organization development helps organizations in problem solving and assisting of people in the acquisition of skills and knowledge on the means of running their organizations. Further, the paper will look at the reasons that contribute to organizational development failure and alternatives that an organization can use to avoid such damaging situations.
3. Method:
The information for this paper came from textbooks and journals. The material was mainly on strategic planning in organizations with a focus specifically on organizational development as a component of strategic planning. For the sake of the project, there was a review of literature from past researches. Through a review of past researches, a variety of researches on different issues pertaining to strategic planning became the source of information for this paper. A study of journals from past studies revealed topics such as on the alternatives to creating change within organizations, strategies for effective implementation of organizational development, reasons for resistance to change and means of enhancing the success of organizational development (Mittal, 2012).
4. Findings/Results
An organization is a component of separate parts requiring coherence for the achievement of its goals to be reality. Through organizational development, different methodologies, strategic plans, organizational designs, coaching, leadership development and creating of balances between life and work helps in delivering the organization to its point of success. The new business era requires the incorporation of extra personal qualities such as emotional intelligence, management abilities, assertive confidence, and creativity for self-improvement. These further contribute to the development and success of profitability and stability in businesses (Jorfi, Jorfi, Yaccob & Shah, 2011). Through organization development, on organization identifies the necessary stages required for its development process. It is the manner in, which organizations evolve and change. Just like humans, organizations go through several developmental stages with each stage having unique crises, problems and means of overcoming them. Therefore, organizational development focuses on the interventions and techniques of relevance to planning and implementing of certain structures, resources and processes for change within an organization. Communication plays a significant role in ensuring that the change process is understood and commitment in an organizations entire team promoting focus for the success of organization development efforts (Decker, Durand, Mayfield, McCormack, Skinner & Perdue, 2012).
Organizational development requires the facilitation of change in human resources, processes and structures. It is a planned process and is always in need of systems diagnosis, mobilization of resources (human, technical, financial) and program development. It is the process of strategy, structural and culture analysis of an organization with a focus in both formal and informal sections of the organization. The formal parts of organizational development focus on organization policy, structure, objective, compensation and human resources. When focusing on the informal sectors of an organization, attention goes to attitudes, values, and social relationships among others. Therefore, organizational development has a focus on the health and performance of the entire organization. Its designing is for the achievement of organizational goals, which will promote satisfaction of the personnel working within the organization (Decker, Durand, Mayfield, McCormack, Skinner & Perdue, 2012).
The importance of organizational development is for solving problems and helping people to acquire skills and knowledge necessary for spearheading their initiatives into success for the organization. Organization development professionals are responsible for helping an organization to solve its problems through improvement of capabilities (Kuyvenhoven & Buss, 2011). Through effectively communicated organizational development requirements by the management; teams in organizations become aware and focused to a common goal, of achieving the objectives of the projected plans. Implementation of organization change depends on the efforts of an entire team and that makes it necessary that everyone in the organization understands their roles and requirements. Free flow of information within the organization creates cohesion of operation, allows for collaboration among teams, and makes coordination of processes easy for top management (Nistelrooij, & Sminia, 2010).
The success of organization development takes a wide spectrum inclusive of its involvement on organizational processes other than just organizational problems. Unlike traditional processes, which involved identification of problems and altering behavior creating them, organization development involves initiation of long-term focus through identification of behavioral patterns and interactions causing and sustaining problems within organizations. This helps organizational development to go beyond solving of a single problem within an organization, through creation of behavioral health initiatives that naturally anticipate and quickly solve or prevent the occurrence of problems. The success of organization development requires the collaboration of management and human resource in different hierarchical levels. It takes teamwork to come up with a feasible strategy and implement it for the success of the organization (Kuyvenhoven & Buss, 2011).
Organization development requires research into issues and processes causing problems in the organization. It needs the intervention of a strategic plan for the initiation of the required change as a continuous process. This allows for the measuring of the results of actions and evaluation of new improved action plans devised for affecting new changes. Organizational development, therefore, are programs or plans comprising of specific designed activities designed for influencing change in a section of an organization. If an organization focuses on high organizational change degrees, it needs to focus on full range intervention such as a design for the transformation of both individual and group attitudes and behaviors. However, there are instances when there is need for changing only a section of the organization such as personnel policies, worker skills, operating policies and management structures (Nistelrooij, & Sminia, 2010).
Employee motivation plays a major role in the process of strategic management. Therefore, there is need for a balance in the goals of an organization and the needs of employees through observation of their communication effectiveness and emotional intelligence (Jorfi, Jorfi, Yaccob & Shah, 2011). The implementation of change during the process of organizational development requires understanding of organizational theories of change and development. Organizational development and change can be influenced by competitive, regulatory, teleology and conflictive factors. Strategic planners respond to these depending on the requirements through regulation and control of organizational processes and people in conformity to the model of required change goals. This process requires mental preparedness of the entire organization for the achievement of a successful focus through the journey of organization development as stipulated within the strategic plan of the organization (Van de Ven, & Sun, 2011).
5. Conclusions
Organizations require change at some points during their life spans. Change comes to organizations just as it does in the lives of humans and it becomes inevitably necessary from the smallest to multinational organizations. Therefore, in the process of change, everyone in the organization must accept the need for change and that takes into account the operations and structure of the entire organization (Van de Ven & Sun, 2011). Through change, organizations become capable of adapting to uncertainties of economic conditions, government interventions, fierce competition, rapidness in technological innovations and scarcity of resources. For successful implementation of organizational development, the management has the role of ensuing that information regarding the required changes in the organization is clear to the employees of the company. This promotes the combined force of leadership to run above any possible forces of resistance that employees may create against the planned changes.
Strategic planning depends highly on the motivation of employees. It requires effective communication between the management and employees at all levels for the achievement of the set goals of organizational development (Smets, Morris & Greenwood, 2012). Effective strategic planning for organizational development stays in alignment with affecting motivation in employees. The result indicates that strategic management influences the motivation of managers and the employees. If effectively implemented, it contributes positively to their attitude towards the efforts of organizational development and in turn leads to the success of the strategic plans. In addition, there is a relation to effective communication and emotional intelligence, which enables free flow of information required for the effectiveness of carrying out of processes in an organizational development process (Jorfi, Jorfi, Yaccob & Shah, 2011).
6. Implications
Through strategic planning, it becomes possible for an organization to understand the attitudes of its employees and focusing on the maintenance of their motivation. This enhances the capacity of ensuring that employees stay focused on the efforts of organizational development goal (Jorfi, Jorfi, Yaccob & Shah, 2011). A well-executed strategic plan conjures the efforts of an entire team in an organization to create a difference in previous processes. Through effective communication between management and lower level employees, understanding of the need and requirements of efforts for organization development makes the need a reality. It creates a sense of responsibility among all those in the company helping the strategic plan implementation process to be a reality (Van de Ven & Sun, 2011). Such openness and clarity about issues open collaborative possibilities for the success of any organization development efforts.
It is also apparent that the success of organizational development depends on the efforts of the team. If teams change, coordination increases and strategic focus becomes easy because of the effectiveness of information sharing through cohesion in the organization. This helps in the reduction of change implementation failures, which persist in most occasions despite the employment of effective decision-making, expert in change management techniques, alignment of organization culture and advancement of organizational processes. It, therefore, becomes important to look for alternative means of employing organizational change without risking the success of the organizations strategic plan (Decker, Durand, Mayfield, McCormack, Skinner & Perdue, 2012).
The absence of clarity can jeopardize organizational development process. When the entire organization understands the issues pertaining to the efforts of organizations development, it becomes easy influencing the participation of the entire team in a positive manner. The controversies that arise following efforts for implementing organizational development occur because of lack of adequate information sharing within the organization during the planning and implementation process (Smets, Morris & Greenwood, 2012). Organizations can use the new organizational development practices such as social constructionist orientation to influence cooperation of teams working on the strategic efforts of an organization. There are aspects in organizations that can change and through the framework of social constructionists, organizational development interventions become positive through the efforts of teamwork. It is an expert means of influencing team participation through understanding of the need for organizational development without risking any chances of employee resistance to the efforts of improving processes in the organization (Shin, Taylor & Seo, 2012).
References
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