When I left the IT industry in 2006 to join the SamSari team, I did so with the goal of learning something new and accelerating my own personal development. So far my time here at SamSari has been a great learning experience, especially when it comes to the “do” part. I’ve had the opportunity to take a closer look at the inner workings of so many different kinds of organizations, helping them realize strategies supporting everything from system adoption to performance management. Another thing that drew me to SamSari was a desire to address the frustration I experienced during the implementation phase of many of the great strategies I helped develop during my years in IT. It seemed like many of our best ideas never got off the ground, or did so with limited success.
I know that the definition of “success” can be slippery. What exactly does it mean when we’re talking about strategy implementation? Many would say that it’s all about meeting or exceeding expectations, but how often does this really happen? The short answer is: not very often. We know that one of the reasons for this is that companies often invest far greater resources in the development of their strategies than they do with implementation. There is a lot of thinking and planning around the question of “What do we do?” but remarkably little focus on what we at SamSari would say is the greater question, “How do we do it?”
This is where the really perplexing, and for me, interesting questions come into play. For example, an organization may be pouring a lot of resources into external customer communication in support of a new branding but still don’t get the desired result. At SamSari, we approach these kinds of issues from the inside-out when analyzing the pitfalls. We may ask if you are providing your people with the internal resources they need to be ambassadors of the brand, so that you secure efficient brand communication also from this perspective? In other words, does your brand embody the energies and vision of the people who represent it? Otherwise it will be difficult to fully realize your new brand perception
Too often management teams push ahead with strategy implementation and find themselves completely unprepared for the sudden and intense resistance that invariably results. Change can’t be done from the top-down, and it won’t happen after a few PowerPoint presentations. At SamSari we’ve learned that real change comes from within. It’s about winning over hearts and minds and shifting attitudes and beliefs to reflect new ideas and new ways of working. I’ve seen too many perfectly sound strategic implementations sink in the mud because their planners failed to recognize this – failed to create a solid foundation that promotes buy-in, aligns interests, and communicates a compelling vision to each and every employee.
It’s not an impossible task. We work with clients every day to develop innovative and cost effective change programs that accomplish all of these objectives. While there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, we’ve developed a pretty impressive array of creative, pedagogical and technical skills that allow us to develop tools and methods to address the wide range of implementation issues our clients face.
I see a lot of really innovative ideas coming out of our client’s organizations these days as they adapt to dramatic changes in the market. We’re excited to be part of making these ideas a working reality, and my hope is that more businesses will begin to realize that while change in today’s business world may be inevitable, it doesn’t have to be unmanageable.
Warm regards,
Dan Öhlander
+46 (0) 70 420 83 02
dan.ohlander@samsari.com
