ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE, LEADERSHIP AND REWARDS

This article addresses the relationship
between an organisation’s culture, leadership and rewards. The article highlights
how an organisation’s strategy supportive culture can enhance high performance.
It is also important to create a spirit of high performance in the organisation
and to link rewards to the level of performance. Adequate policies are to be
put in place by the leadership to ensure that those who fail to perform are not
unduly punished but are encouraged to come up with bright ideas next time.

Administrative
Components of Strategy Implementation

Strategy implementation has primarily an administrative
focus. So, successful
strategy implementation depends on the skills of working through others,
organising, motivating, culture building and creating stronger fits between
strategy and how the organisation operates.

Ingrained behaviour does not change
just because a new strategy has been announced. Implementing strategy posses a
tougher management challenge than developing a sound strategy plans as we shall
see in this article.

The task of generating
organization-wide commitment to strategy implementation and execution has four
major components, which are as follows.

a.    Motivate
and organise units and individuals to execute the strategic plan and achieve
the goals.

b.   Building
of a strategy-supportive corporate culture

c.     
Create
a strong result orientation and a spirit of high performance.

d.    Link
the reward structure to actual strategic performance.

We shall discuss these major
components one after the other to see how they affect strategy implementation.

The motivation of
People to Achieve Set Goals

For organisations goals to be achieved there is the need for commitment to implementing and executing the formulated strategies by the units and individuals in the organisation. Commitment on the part of the individuals can be obtained through motivation, incentives and the rewarding of any good performance. There are a range of options for getting people and units to push hard for successful strategy implementation using the standard reward and punishment mechanisms such as salary increases, bonuses, stock options, fringe benefits, promotions, praise, recognition, job control, decision making autonomy, promise of attractive locational assignment and bonds of group acceptance. The aim of motivation is to inspire the employees to do their best for the organisations and a commitment to make the strategy work.

Examples of strategy-supportive motivational approach
are:

a.                
Every
employee to get a weekly 10% bonus by coming to work on time each day of the
week.

b.               
Employees
meet regularly to hear inspirational speeches, using company song, and chant
the corporate litany. There could also

be inspirational get-together for
organisational members. The speeches may be personal and emotional.

c.                
Assemblies
can be organised on a particular day of the week to

listen to a
management talk about the state of the company.            San

Diego companies engage in brisk
calisthenics on a particular day of the week and believe that by doing one
thing together each day, it reinforces the unity of the company.

Units and divisions may be given freedom to set their side of the case which must be critically weighted. For instance, when a strategy implementations use of rewards and punishment induces too much tension, anxiety and job insecurity, the result can be counter productive. However, it is not useful to completely eliminate tension and pressure for performance from the strategy implementation process. A high performing organisation will need a cadre of ambitious people who cherish the opportunity of climbing to the top of the ladder of success, who thrives in performance-oriented environment and who find some degree of competition and pressure useful to satisfy their own drives for personal recognition, career advancement, self satisfaction and accomplishment.

The generally accepted view is that a
manager’s push for strategy implementation should involve more of positive than
negative motivational elements. The more a  manager understands what motivates subordinates
and the more that motivational incentives are relied on to implement and
execute strategy, the greater will be the employees’ commitment to carrying out
the strategic plan.

Building a
Strategy-Supportive Culture

Every well established
organisation has a unique culture. This means that it has a special history of
management; set ways of solving problems, conducting day-to-day organisational
affairs, its managerial styles; it has its own patterns of “this is the way we
do thing here”. It has its own legends and heroes, its own stories and
experiences of how changes have been instituted.

An organisation’s culture
is therefore, very important in strategy implementation it is as fundamental as
implementing and executing the chosen strategic plan which may involve moving
the whole organisational culture into alignment with strategy. Optimally, the
organisation’s culture should be in tune with strategy so that the execution of
the strategic plan can be truly powerful and successful.

The corporate culture may be the philosophy, attitude, belief
and shared values upon and around which the organisation operates. It may be difficult
to pin it down in any company’s activities or accurately characterise it.  They manifest in people’s attitude
and feelings. The stories they tell the
vibrations and gist that emanate from the work environment. People are usually
proud to share and identify with the success stories and traditions and values
of the organisations. The culture of a company can be shaped by these:

i.   A
belief in being the best

ii.   A
belief in superior quality of product or service

iii.  A
belief in the importance of individuals and a faith in their ability to make
strong positive contribution to the company

iv.              
A
belief in the importance of details of execution and the knitty- gritty of
doing the job well.

v.     A
belief in the saying that customers should reign supreme

vi.      A
belief in the importance of informality during communication

vii.   A
recognition that growth and profit are importance to the company’s well.

In companies where these
are strong culture, every employee must abide by it or opt-out and leave the
company. Such companies are clear on what they stand for, that take serious the
process of shaping values and reinforcing their cultural norms.

Fitting of
Strategy and Culture

Usually, the strategy manager has the responsibility of ensuring that the strategy chosen can be executed within the given constraints imposed by the organisation culture. So, it is the manager’s leadership task to bring the chosen strategy into alignment with the corporate culture.

In creating a “fit” between strategy and culture, the management has to consider the problem of needed changes and how long will it take to effect the changes once started, to complete it and then bear the required fruits.

Normally, managerial actions taken to modify corporate culture should be symbolic and substantive. The manager has to consult widely and convince the organisation that more than cosmetics is involved. There should be a competent team which is psychologically committed to superior strategy execution.

Creating a High
Spirit of Performance

There is a negative aspect of the high spirit performance. Managers whose units consistently perform poor should be removed or re-assigned for their own good. People who find themselves on the job they cannot handle are unhappy. Beside, subordinates have the right to be managed with competence, dedication and achievement. Unless their boss performs well, they themselves cannot perform well.
Linking Rewards to Performance

If strategy accomplishment is a top priority in an organisation, then reward structure must be linked explicitly and tightly to actual strategic performance decision on matters such as salary increases, promotion, and who gets which key assignment. The ways and means of awarding praise and recognition are the strategy implementers’ foremost attention getting, commitment generating devices.
The way an individual is perceived to be doing a good job and such matters hardly escape the notices of scrutiny of every member of an organisation.

Creating a tight between strategy and reward structure is best accomplished by a natural agreement on strategic objectives, responsibility fixing and deadlines for achieving them, and then treating such achievement as contract. Then the contract for strategic performance should be the real basis for designing incentives, evaluating individual efforts and handing out rewards. All managers must understand clearly how rewards are calculated.

  Internal Administrative Support for Strategy Implementation

Exerting
Strategic Leadership