Abstract:
It is known that approximately 70% of strategic organisational initiatives fail. The
business environment is becoming increasingly complex and ambiguous and
continuously relies on strategic thinking initiatives to remain competitive. Therefore
it has become vital for leaders to be well-versed in strategic thinking elements and
organisational change systems and how to apply the two concepts simultaneously.
A qualitative study focused on the lived experiences and perceptions of leaders
involved in strategic thinking. A total of 11 semi-structured interviews were
conducted with selected leaders. The leaders are all employed by a company,
Company X, which is currently undergoing organisational change.
The findings contributed to the development of a conceptual model. The model
consists of the leaders lived experiences juxtaposed with academic literature. The
model suggests which elements of strategic thinking leaders have learned based on
their experiences. These elements resemble the properties of Liedtka's (1998)
strategic thinking model which consists of systems perspectives, intent focused,
thinking in time, hypothesis driven and intelligent opportunism. The model similarly
indicates which of the above strategic thinking elements the leaders use during
different phases of organisational change. Kotter's (1995) eight-step organisational
change model was utilised for this research. The leader's experiences and
perspective on the above literature models were also verified. The model further
demonstrates the different leader-to-stakeholder relationships required and
leveraged during the different organisational change phases.
The study aims to guide leaders on vital strategic thinking elements and how these
elements are to be expended during diverse organisation change stages with
distinctive stakeholders as required to ensure successful organisational change
implementation.
