Linking Strategy to Implementation

Most organisations (large, medium or small) in the world today are facing a similar problem - strategy can not be effectively implemented. The consequence of not implementing the strategy effectively would be low performance. This has lead to a popular criticism "Talk only, no action". Thus, having the right strategy is not sufficient. The leader of an organisation can not just sitting down there waiting for the strategy to be realised by itself. Right strategy should be coupled with an effective implementation plan. How to develop an effective implementation (action) plan is the concern of many organisations today. Research in the more well developed countries and from world leading universities has undegone major change. This change is characterised as paradigm shift. The generation of a new type of knowledge (called mode 2) has improve organisation performance further. The adoption of tools and methods to link strategy and implementation has proven to be successful.

Managing a country

Understand what is politics?

Politics is defined as

• the science which has for its object the ascertainment of political facts and arrangement of them in systematic order as determined by the logical and causal relations who exist between them
  
• a branch of the social sciences dealing with the theory, organization, government and practice of the state

The roles of Politics

• To reshape or influence governmental structures or processes
  
• To influence or replace governmental office-holders
  
• To influence the formation of public policies
  
• To influence the implementation of public policies
  
• To generate public awareness of, and response to, governmental processes, personnel and policies
• To gain a place of influence or power within government

Political values

• People are to judge whether they are satisfied / not satisfied with the performance of the government
  
• People expect that power should be used in certain ways
  
• People evaluate power is used or misused
  
• People are to judge whether the resources of the country are properly and carefully utilized
  
• People expect good health care
  
• People expect equal opportunity in education and business
  
• People expect guaranteed jobs

• People expect justice and the rule of law

Scope of political science (Undertand politics from 4 perspectives)

• Political theory
  
• International relations (national security, diplomacy, international law, regional organizations, warfare)
  
• Comparative politics and government (executive, legislative and judicial bodies)

• Public administration (methods of managing and administrating government. Government needs trained personnel, for more cooperation and coordination, management and supervision, for more efficient performance of government functions and for better government organization)

Political party

Political party is a formal organization whose self-conscious, primary purpose is to place and maintain in public office persons who will control, alone or in coalition, the machinery of government.

Functions of political parties

1) A link between people and government
(the mechanisms through which the citizens’ needs and wishes are communicated to the government. Without parties, individuals would stand alone and ignored by government)

2) Aggregation of interests
a) Parties struggle to capture power, they strive to form order out of chaos.
b) Parties seek to widen the interests they represent and harmonize these with each other
c) Parties help interest groups moderate their demands
d) Parties help resolve interest group conflicts by aggregating their separate interests into a larger organization
(Political parties are coalitions of interest groups)

3) Political socialization
a) Ground for political training and enhance leadership
b) Leaders learn to speak, conduct meeting, carry out door-to-door campaign

4) Mobilization of voters
a) Parties use mass media to educate the people politically
b) To mobilize masses and to get them vote

5) Forming a government
a) Political parties try their best to win majorities, to form a government and remain in power
b) Political parties, then appoint people to high-level jobs in the executive departments, this allows the PM to implement the policy effectively. The PM can implement his policies without much delay
c) The party control of the government is not absolute, parties have to deal with established bureaucracies of government that have considerable power of their own
d) It is essential for parties to recruit winning candidates in the election and to identify people who will fill important positions in the government

6) Viable opposition
(oppose, criticize the policies and activities and act as a check and balance)

(a political party is different from interest group because a political party is the only organization that runs candidates for office under its label)

Pressure Groups

A pressure group or interest group

Is any collection of people organized to promote a goal they share or to resist some objective of government of other groups that somehow relates to the political process

A pressure group is define as:

• Is any voluntary organized group of individuals outside the governmental structure which attempts the nomination, appointments of government personnel, government administration and public policies
  
• They have a formal structure of organization
  
• They are able to aggregate and articulate interest
  
• They influence public policies
  
• They try to influence power rather than exercise the responsibility of government themselves
  

Types of pressure groups

1) Associational pressure group
- Trade associations
- Labor unions
- Professional body
- Farmers groups

2) Non-associational pressure group
- Religious group
- Ethnic groups
- Non-smoker groups

3) Institutional groups
- Government bureaucracies
- Members of armed forces
- Members of Parliment

4) Anomic groups
- Hindraf (born due to oppose to specific policies)

The Roles/Contributions of Pressure Group

1. A mechanism for political representation. The people’s interests are well represented in a political system in an organized way.
2. Allows the political process to be more responsive.
3. Plays the role of a mediator between people and the government. Help the administrators or legislators to secure information on facts and attitudes.
4. Supplement the government agencies.
5. Each citizen may be weak as an individual, it may be difficult for an individual to put his/her demands or grievances, but through an association individual become strong.
6. Prevents the concentration of power.

Methods of influence strategy and tactics

Direct methods
a) By seeking the election of like-minded representatives
b) By seeking access to public officials
c) By mounting mass-media campaigns.

Indirect methods
a) MP are also members of the group
b) Bureaucrats spouse are members of the group
c) Part-time trade representative who have continuous access to political representatives or ministers
d) Retired bureaucrats join NGOs, private companies

Make use of Politics in a right way

Understand how politics work

- Exists because we do not agree with one another
- Is about choosing between competing interests and views often demanding incompatible allocation of limited resources
- Is about trying to get what you want for yourself, or alongside others, for a common cause.
- Is about reaching a compromise, and finding ways for those who disagree to rub along with one another.

Politics matters because

- There are conflicts and differences of perspective in society about when to do, what resources to collect for public use and how those resources should be spent.
- If everyone agreed we should value the environment and the future of the earth there would be plenty of scope for disagreement about what to do, what course of action to take and at what level of urgency.
- So if people agree about the goal there remain a lot of arguments to be had about the means to achieve the goal. A lot of collective decision making involves redistribution, and so politics can involve intense arguments about who gets what.
- Politics always involve regulation or intervention that passes costs on to some rather than others. And in the details of implementation – the way that a policy is put into effect – there is plenty of scope for further differences of opinion and interest.

Politics is important

- It reflects the tensions created when human beings rub up against each other and at times it does more than just express those conflicts, it finds a way of settling them.

Politics – is one of the ways we know of how to address and potentially patch up the disagreements that characterize our societies without course to illegitimate coercion or violence.

Politics – especially in democratic societies, enables people to compromise and reach an agreement. It is a means to orderly and legitimate self-rule.

Politics – can provide a means of getting on with your fellow human beings that aims to find a way forward through reconciliation and compromise without recourse to straight forward coercion or outright violence.

Politics in right use

- It provides a way to live in an ordered manner with your neighbors, but one that unavoidably often calls on you to sign up to deals and compromises that might not be yours first or even tenth choice, but which nevertheless have something in them that enables you to put up with them.
- It might not be very inspiring. But, when it works politics delivers one great benefits
- It enables you to choose, within constraints, the life you want without fear of physical coercion and violence being used against you
- Create space for human choices and diverse lifestyles, create positive context and stable environment for you to live your life.

Comments,opinions, and suggestions are welcome at the main page.

Managing a larga organisation

Managing a Large Sized Organisation: a Government

Understand what is government?

Govern is

• to exercise continuous sovereign authority over
  
• to control and direct the making and administration of policy in
  
• to control the speed of (as a machine) especially by automatic means
  
• to control, direct, or strongly influence the actions and conduct of
  
• to exert a determining or guiding influence in or over
  
• to prevail or have decisive influence
  
• to exercise authority
  

The definition of Government

A government is the organization that is the governing authority of a political unit, the ruling power in a political society, and the apparatus through which a governing body functions and exercises authority. Government, with the authority to make laws, to adjudicate disputes, and to issue administrative decisions, and with a monopoly of authorized force where it fails to persuade, is an indispensable means, proximately, to the peace of communal life. We should maintain that the necessity of government derives from the fact that the people need to live in communities, yet personal autonomy must be constrained in these communities. A state of sufficient size and complexity will have different layers or levels of government: national, regional and local.

Types of government

Democracy - Rule by a government where the people as a whole hold the power. It may be exercised by them (direct democracy), or through representatives chosen by them (representative democracy).
Monarchy - Rule by an individual who has inherited the role and expects to bequeath it to their heir.
Despotism - Rule by a single leader, all his or her subjects are considered his or her slaves.
Dictatorship - Rule by an individual who has full power over the country.
Oligarchy - Rule by a small group of people who share similar interests or family relations.
Plutocracy - A government composed of the wealthy class.
Theocracy - Rule by a religious elite. Anarchy - Absence, or lack of government.

Fundamental purpose of government

The fundamental purpose of government is the maintenance of basic security and public order. Without government, individuals cannot attempt to find happiness. Individuals, or more accurate The People, live in this world, act rationally, saw submission to a government dominated by a sovereign as preferable to anarchy. People in a community create and submit to government for the purpose of establishing for themselves, safety and public order.

Managing an effective Government

Important of Law and Government in maintaining public order

For many thousands of years, humans lived in small and self-sufficient communities. Overtime, knowledge and technology allowed humans to become more effective at agriculture, and thus allowed for increasing population and densities. This has resulted in the development of township and cities. And the development in states with laws and governments.

As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between different groups increased and the social pressure rose until, new structures suddenly appeared, together with a new level of complexity. Cities and states reorganize and energize the smaller objects within their gravitational field.

The exact moment and place that the phenomenon of human government developed is lost in time; however, history does record the formations of very early governments-The Chin Dynasty of China (before that were Shang and Zhou). About 5,000 years ago, the first small city-states appeared. By the third to second millenniums BC, some of these had developed into larger governed areas such as the Chin Dynasty: States formed as the results of a positive feedback loop where population growth results in increased information exchange which results in innovation which results in increased resources which results in further population growth. The role of cities are important. Cities became the primary conduits for the dramatic increases in information exchange that allowed for large and densely packed populations to form, and because cities concentrated knowledge, they also ended up concentrating power. Increasing population density in farming regions provided the demographic and physical raw materials used to construct the first cities and states, and increasing congestion provided much of the motivation for creating states.

Government is sometimes an enemy and sometimes a friend. Government exalts some of us and oppresses others. At times, governments are aligned with our religious, economic and social views, and at other times, it is misaligned. The role of government in the lives of people has expanded significantly during human history. Government's role has gone from providing basic security to concern in religious affairs to control of national economies and eventually to providing lifelong social security. As our societies have become more complex, governments have become more complex, powerful and intrusive. The controversies over how big, how powerful and how intrusive governments should become will continue for the remainder of human history.

Organisational size

Managing different Organisational size

Size of organisation

• Small-sized organisation: school, societies, and clubs
• Medium-sized organisations: business companies, big factories, univerties
• Large-sized organisations: government, UN, army