A pivotal shift in business strategy-making is taking place, assert Stephen Wall and Shannon Rye Wall. Strategy, once the exclusive province of senior management, is now the responsibility of people at every level in today's most forward-looking companies. Drawing on a ten-year study of more than 200 firms such as AT&T, 3M, The Geon Company, and Ritz Carlton Hotels, which included questionnaires and interviews with more than 4,000 line managers and human resource professionals, the authors demonstrate how companies can incorporate the experience of every employee to become more focused, more competitive, and more responsive to changing markets.
Challenging the conventional wisdom about leadership in the '90s, the Walls go beyond the boardroom to discuss how to get people involved in the strategic process by moving the responsibility for planning to lower levels and by building a participatory culture based on listening. Debunking the common myth that strategy must precede tactics, the Walls show how adopting a more flexible approach to the strategic development process can balance openness to new opportunities and the need to make decisions quickly with the need to maintain longer-term strategic focus.