Energix... No bridging no solution

Energix case study showed the weaknesses that influenced the process of running a business, where David failed to in leading Energix. The mistake done by David and many others is that there is no use of communication which can help the leader to be supported by his or her employees. In addition the absence of bridging had a big impact on the internal environment of Energix. In comparaision to NHS hospital led by Gerry Robinson, had same difficulties as Energix which is led by David. However, Gerry started looking for solutions to problems that NHS faces and started by the first stage which bridging which stands in communicating with employees and try to understand what's going on. David has to do the same thing, communicate with employees to faciliate the process of finding solutions by taking employees point of views and opinions. On the other hand, it would be very good opportunity to increase employess' values and self esteem. As a result, this will reenforce the leadership into the organization and affect positively in the process of production.

Madonna ... The diva in Leadership !

Madonna is not seen as a singer only but as a good leader. She has been taking her carrer as an organiation where she has been leading it successfully. she began her carrer re-inventing herself sold over 300 million records and CDs to adoring fans worldwide. She made movies where sucessful in the Box Office. Madonna used creative and innovative strategy where she was producing songs and movies that are fashionable in her fans' eyes. She has been changing her style just to keep herself in the head of the market which also led her to be one of the best singer in the music industry. She addopted an authentic style which helped to grow with her audience and satisfy her old fans and attract the attention of new ones. Exploiting the market resources gave her a competitive advantage, also she was capting any opportunity that will make her more famous as nothing is enough to be the top in the world, she needed to keep collaborating with other famous people. She didn't stop producing and performing in live also she wrote books which made her the best singer, best Business women and the best Leader in her territory.

=> What i learned from Madonna case study is that we have to keep on updating our knowledge and skills, also diverssifying our products which involves creation and inovation. As weel as long term success is based on taking a long term strategy which Madonna has been doing during her carrer where she started step by step until she reached the highest level of popularity here she has been called "The Diva" .

The ghost strategy of PepsiCo

There are many strategies covered in PepsiCo case study which are:

• Business must take short term strategies.
• Business that focuses on Profit only is a poor Business. Ford  
• Business that makes Profit is a good Business. Friedman
• Business must complete a certain number of sales.
• Business should focuses on CSR strategy.
• Business must build strong strategic alliances.
• Business must focus on advertisment.
• Business must have a strong Marketing which will help to detect customer's needs and satisfy it.

For a successful Business, CEOs must take the lead to drive their Businesses in the right way to predict a successful future. However, in PepsiCo's case showed that the company is taking a wrong strategy where they are focusing on their goods instead of applying better strategies such as Effective Strategic Leadership. PepsiCo is spending big amount of money on production whitout giving time to understand custormer's needs which lead the competitor CoCa Cola to be the leader in the market. The Strategy taken by PepsiCo is not yet proved as wether successful one or not, only the future will reveal the truth.

NHS Calls Emergency

No Leaders - No Managers ??!!!

NHS a very well known hospital in the UK territory, known by its service but how the hospital is managed and led ? This is the question that Gerry Robinson has been asking the employers, managers and leaders.
Let's take NHS hospital as a normal organisation, we all know that an organization sales its products to make profit and have the best position into a certain market. NHS is far to be such an organization, it is very far to reach the target of making a significant profit. The mistake done by Gerry is that employers have no manager and it seems like there no leader, everything is based on the strategy where Gerry had difficulties to manage it. As a result many empty studios, no surgeries on the plan, no surgeons which lead no customers which lead to NO PROFIT. Gerry has been interviewing every worker in the hospital to detect the main problem. The problem was that the structure is not the right one!
The first action taken by Gerry is bridging which helped him to communicate with its employers, in order to find a solution.

For a successful and effective strategic leadership particular steps must be taken:

1.  Clarify your vision: It involves making plans to reach a target and this should be communicated to all the employees more often in daily basis. at this tage strategies are also involved as a part of the plan.
2.  Set goals: Firt of all is bringing together the different goals that everyone can set into an organisation then make it as one common goal where employees will work to reach them efficiently. It is always very important and fundamental to organization to communicate targets and goals planned to reach to its employees so everybody inside the company will be a part of the achievement.
3. Align Systems: At this stage, aligning system is very important where strategies taken could be wrong ones, here starts the critical step. Employees, managers and leaders have to communicate if the strategy is going to successful or not, if its an efficient one, then it must be contibued progressively. It is far to be a short term process, this must be examined every day and for long term. 
4. Work the plan: Here starts the stage of execution of the plans setted by the organization. goals, must be broken down into department goals and they must be broken down into individual goals, with clear timeframes, and regular review of progress or issues related to plan attainment.Time is very important, that's why spending time on aligning better than waisting it thinking. Weekly at the individual and manger level, monthly at the department to executive level, and quarterly at the corporate level. Anything less increases the chance of losing focus.
5. Review: Here comes the diamond questions such as Is it still valid, are we making adequate progress, what do your customers think? when the question are answered it will help the organization to detect if it is progressing , or having a lack of progress, with specific feedback to executive management from all levels.

In my opinion, these are the steps that Gerry has to take in the hospital to first detect the problem, make plans that will lead to reach the target, then aligning and execution of the plans, working on plans made, nad finally review them by collecting feedbacks from both employers and customers where ate this stage it is very important to know if the customer has been satified by the service offered by the hospital.

=> During the class I've been discussing into groups where everyone was giving his or her opinion about the strategy, detecting the problem and finding solutions. Honestly, i had no problem in accepting people's opinion and communicating mine clearly, some of them were not satisfied by my point of view due to the differentiation of people's thinking, as there are people who don't accept different point of views. However, i had no problem in accepting this fact.

Faslane => Strategy changes lead to successful future.

Faslane has taken new startegies into the company where the traget was to change the internal environement which will affect the employees.
The main strategy was to switch the bureaucracy which was making the employees feel as 'normal workers' to a flexible environment "Democracy" where employees gain high self esteem and changing their normal feeling of employees to the feeling of belonging to the company and give them the freedom to communicate and give their own opinions. Only the loyal employees who standed with the company changes where the others left. Faslane supported the changes by making the process bottom-up. As a result Faslane gained its employees' trust and loyality which affect its quality of production which affect also its customers' satifaction. Also, the new strategy helped them to build a strong company structure which by itself led them to make bigger alliances with other companies such as MOD, Naval Base Commander and local community.

=> In my opinion, I do advise all the companies to go for this strategy as a basis to build a strong company structure where employees work to reach similar targets and also work efficiently.

IDEO => Creation and Innovation

Creativity and innovation are both very important factors that influence on companies in general to stay updated and wether keep their position in the market or lead it.
Effective Strategic Leadership  gives the general vision and direction to help companies to develop themselves and grow efficiently. It help them also to deal with challenges and changes where CEOs need to have enough skills and knowledge for both strategy formulation and implementation.
Strategic Leaders has to eficient, Richard Martin has detected some characteristics of an effective strategic leader in his article "What Is Effective Strategic Leadership?" :

• They are mission focused.
• They have an ability to see both the forest AND the trees.
• They are at least as outward looking as inward looking.
• Their thinking is complex and they look for non-obvious causes and solutions.
• They think probabilistically.
• They spend most of their time thinking about the future.
• They realize there is only one aspect of an organization, and it is human.

A chinese proverb says:

"There are many paths to the top of the montain but the view is always the same"

However, an Effective Strategi Leadership is never completed without looking at innovation and creation, as we say that these two factors are the future. For example including technology to organizations will faciliate their process of production and may take them to be the leader in the market such as Apple company.

IDEO provide us a very good example of a clear creative and innovative structered process. However, it provide a very good misture of people who are from different backgrounds which influence on the providing different opinions and point of views which also faciliate decison making. To obtain an effective Strategic Leadership it is fundamental to build up teams which lead to an efficient communication of strategies. It is very important that organizations build trust and beleive in its employees innovations and creativity because it helps to produce new and modern products based on employees opinions and ideas. It helps employees to develop their values self esteem and decrease the bureaucracy in the organization's internal environment.