Introduction: Navigating the Strategy and Change Interface Successfully

This book draws on a range of scholarly traditions and insights from practice to develop unifying principles and frameworks for successfully navigating the strategy and change interface. It concludes that the strategy process works best when everyone, in every part of the organisation, understands that the concept of “the current strategy” is just that, a concept. Strategic programmes of change are more likely to be successfully implemented when organisational leaders find ways to help their people to adapt the strategy or reimagine it over time at all stages of the strategy process. This includes while implementing the financial, customer value creation, resource and non-market strategies, and building critical enabling dynamic capabilities. It is for these reasons leaders need to become adept at understanding why internal stakeholders think, feel and institutionalise knowledge to interact with each other and external stakeholders the way they do when addressing their organisation’s unique institutional contexts. The reality is all organisations need a diversity of people with disciplinary and general knowledge, and mindsets and backgrounds of all kinds to do well, no matter its challenges, or how the future unfolds.