Discipline of Strategy Execution: Goals and Business Model

Abstract

If we look carefully at the ways organizations define and try to achieve goals, many of them would be better suited as units of analysis in the theory of catastrophes rather than the theory of strategy. Managers frequently formulate unclear, nonmeasurable and conflicting goals, and then modify them during the implementation phase in order to match results. However, this practice doesn’t change the fact that when speaking about management in general, and in particular about strategic management, we are talking about a goal-oriented activity, which should, by nature, be on the opposite end of the spectrum from randomness and should preclude meandering away from once-set objectives. But where do organizational goals come from? Let’s start with a short theoretical background, which will allow us to better understand a good practice of formulating strategic goals, and then we’ll move on to practical directives, which are necessary in the discipline of the strategy’s implementation.