Preventing Strategic Gridlock: Leading Over, Under and Around Organizational Jams to Achieve High Performance Results

Citation

Chaharbaghi, K. (2004), "Preventing Strategic Gridlock: Leading Over, Under and Around Organizational Jams to Achieve High Performance Results", Management Decision, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 166-167. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740410509246

Organizations are built and run on assumptions that determine their behaviour, dictate their decisions and define what they consider to be meaningful results. Organizations often call for new strategies and initiatives when they face a crisis thereby acknowledging that those assumptions that once led them to growth and success are no longer in harmony with the reality of their changing environment. In her book, Preventing strategic gridlock: leading over, under and around organizational jams to achieve high performance results, Harper shows why strategies and initiatives that looked good during planning end up mysteriously snarled in a tangled web of persistent organizational problems (“strategic gridlock”) during execution.

The “gridlock” metaphor came about from Harper's experiences with traffic gridlock, where the source of a jam is frequently miles away from the problem that is causing it to happen. For example, in the New York City Metro area, where Harper lives, traffic reporters will frequently announce to listeners that “today is a gridlock alert day”, and signs on the expressway will post “gridlock alert” warnings so that drivers can plan detours before they get stuck in traffic jams. Harper began to see more and more parallels between traffic jams and the situations in organizations where the source of organizational jams is often far from where the problems occur. In developing her ideas for this book, Harper started to see her role as parallel to that of a traffic reporter, helping leaders to see the less apparent sources of problems, and partnering with them to plan the detours so they can achieve high performance results.

According to Harper, mistaken assumptions about organizational reality show up long before the visible signs of strategic gridlock. She groups these assumptions into seven categories, which she calls hidden roadblocks. These are: one‐size‐fits‐all, management by lobotomy, act now think later, magic of the marquee, roller coaster, tin ear and lighthouse. These categories of assumptions are the most common ones that Harper has observed and are not necessarily the only ones that exist. Furthermore, although these categories of assumptions can be considered to be context free, when and how they occur depends upon the specific context. Part one of this book explains these seven categories of hidden roadblocks.

In part two of this book, Harper introduces a six‐step process for reducing the gridlock. She has based this process upon six major principles and guidelines of organizational reality. These are: understand the full challenge; negotiate buy‐in of key stakeholders; locate cultural advancers and blockers; organize relevant priorities, goals and action plans; communicate credibly and keep adjusting. These six principles and guidelines form the acronym UNLOCK which Harper considers will help organizations to “unlock” their performance so they can move forward.

Harper has based the development of this book on two main meta‐assumptions (i.e. assumptions about mistaken assumptions). First, business leaders are prone to mistaken assumptions, regardless of their level of education or experience. This is because they are inside their own systems with a limited perspective. That is why it is vital to identify who the key stakeholders are for a particular strategy or initiative, and to gain their perspectives before making commitments to even the “best” plans. Second, depending upon a combination of personal style and their organization's culture, different leaders and executive teams have natural tendencies toward certain types of assumptions. For instance, some leaders may have a tendency toward “one size fits all”, whereas others may have more of a tendency toward “act now think later”. The more that leaders become aware of their natural tendencies, the more they can be on the lookout for signs that there may be “hidden roadblocks” to the success of their plans.

Images that remained after reading this book are that strategies and initiatives succeed because of a delicate and unique balance of organizational and business world circumstances that change over time and that when business leaders understand the unique and multi‐faceted nature of their organization's reality, as it exists today, they end up with more successful outcomes and fewer unpleasant surprises.