Strategic planning management Essay on: Planning and change leaders

Good planning in the change management is the response to proactive approach for change management. Proactive approach minimizes the impact of change on the productivity of the employees, minimize the impact on the morale of the employees, and avoid turnover and adverse effect on customers, building personal coping skills and facilitation of change management.

Requirement of change leaders

            Change leaders are required as they can do effective planning and can manage change with their leadership skills and proactive approach. Successful change leaders understand why the change is happening and adopt a change mind-set.

Communities of practice for knowledge management

                  Communities of practice are a group of people joined informally for an enterprise for sharing their passion and experience in the organization. Communities of practice keep on renewing themselves and generate knowledge which is vital for effective planning of change management in the organization. Although these communities are informal and self-organizing, they get benefitted from cultivation. For sustained communities of practice and their growth, managers should ensure that they are able to identify potential communities of practice which will enhance the strategic capabilities of the company. Managers must also ensure that there is adequate infrastructure for support of these communities and people in these communities can express their expertise in a free way. For instance, at Shell Inc., any person who wants to develop and form a new community consults a consultant and meets prospective members. They keep on looking at challenges and problems that people across teams and units can meet in accomplishing tasks assigned to them and then, start meetings and discussions for arriving at solutions (Josserand 2004).

            Feeling of personal connection is necessary in these communities of practice. For nourishing these communities of practice in organizations, executives and managers at strategic level should invest time and money in order to help communities reach their potential at the fullest level. Whenever they run up against obstacles, managers should intervene so that information flow is not obstructed. Provision of official sponsors and support team can strengthen communities of practice. These sponsors and support team work with community leaders for providing resources and coordination (Wenger and Snyder 2000).

`           AMS (American Management Association) and World Bank have successfully implemented the communities of practice approach for effective knowledge management. AMS has a formal approach while World Bank applies a combination of formal and informal approach for communities of practice. Successful launch and administration of communities of practice in these two organizations is an example of effective planning.

            When AMS was going through an intense period of globalization and growth, it found itself unable to leverage knowledge throughout the organization. At this time, the company initiated the communities of practice structure in strategic areas of the company. This made knowledge management easy and free-flowing in the company. At the World Bank, communities of practice were launched with the aim of making the organization a knowledge bank that provides high quality information sources on economic development. The common factor in both the organizations in relation to communities of practice is that the senior management level of both the organizations support and sponsor these communities of practice. Conducting knowledge fairs, providing technical support and organizing annual community conferences are some of the major roles of sponsors and support teams for these communities (Wenger and Snyder 2000).

            Effective planning in managing these communities of practice has led these organizations to manage their knowledge pool in an effective way. Communities of practice are continuously emerging in these companies that thrive on knowledge. Key planning for this new and emerging frontier in knowledge organizations includes understanding of managers in regards to working of these communities. Next step is to realize that these communities are keys to the management for addressing the challenge of maintaining knowledge economy. The third step is to provide appropriate and adequate managerial support for developing and nourishing them so as to integrate them in the organization with their full power and potential (Wenger and Snyder 2000).

            Cultivation of communities of practice in learning organizations is dependent on intervention of management and internal organizational context. Managers must be able to adopt complex as well as contradictory behaviors so as to handle the task of cultivating the communities of practice in an effective manner. Five steps in planning for cultivation of communities in knowledge management by managers include the following:

Stimulation: Establishment of connection between members of the organization is the first step. The capacity of the management to establish a connection should not include any kind of force by the management on individuals. The process of stimulating must be based on willingness.

Facilitation: The second role is the role of facilitation. It is important to facilitate the flow of ideas. The manager should not be bossy. Meetings and seminars of the communities of practice must be taken care of by the management but it should not come in between the free and self-organized working of these communities (Josserand 2004).

Support: It includes giving support to communities in form of providing infrastructure and resources necessary for the conduction of activities of such communities.

Control: Control is necessary to be practiced by the management so as to prevent communities of practice to just become a way of social encounter without any productive outcome or achievement. The control should be informal. For instance, rather than asking for a formal report from the community leader, the manager should enquire about the meetings and developments taking place in the community, and ask the participants in the community to keep him informed about the meetings and developments (Josserand 2004).

Recognition: It is the fifth role to be played by the management. Rewarding and appreciation of members of communities of practice for their achievements keeps the community motivated and working (Josserand 2004).

Building ambidexterity in organizations

            Ambidexterity can be referred to as mastering of both alignment and adaptability. For instance, Nokia Inc. is continuously working on development of hi-tech mobile technology offerings and at the same time continuing to invest in its dominant area of handsets franchise. Creating a right balance between the adaptability and alignment is necessary for innovation and learning organizations. Too much attention and focus on alignment will bring short term profits but changes in the industry will bring them down sooner or later. On the same side, focusing too much on adaptability can lead to building of effective business for tomorrow, but at the expense of business that can bring profit today.

            Creation of high performance organizational context shapes the behavior of the organization both at the individual and collective level. Emphasis on performance management and social support will make the employees of the organization ambidextrous (Birkinshaw 2004)

            Ambidexterity can arise not just from the formal structure of the company or the vision statement of the leader of the company, but it is achieved from the creation of a unique and supportive organizational context wherein employees can make their own choices in regards to how, where and when to focus their skills and energies in order to create synergies between the organizational goals and competencies of individuals (Mohram and Lawler 2012).

            Effective planning for building ambidexterity in the organization includes diagnosis of organizational context which can be done through responses from all kinds of people in the organization; focusing on some of the important levers and employing them in a consistent way, for instance focusing on levers that can speed up social support side of the organization including professional development and knowledge management; and building understanding at all organizational levels by clear dissemination of the message of ambidexterity at all the levels (Birkinshaw 2004).

Conclusion

            Effective planning is the key to innovation and learning organizations. Today, organizations operate in a highly competitive environment and there is need to develop competitive advantage in the industry. Good planning is the key to attain competitive advantage. Innovation and learning are desirable in modern organizations. Strategic planning and management can make the company effective in implementing change management, knowledge management and ambidexterity. In order to thrive in the competitive environment, communities of practice are a key source for managing knowledge pool of the organizations. It can help in maintaining free flow of information required for attaining innovation and learning in the organization. Ambidexterity can be attained by proper planning by managers so that high performance organizational context can be created.

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