RERIGHT Management Consulting

RERIGHT Strategy

Strategy is not a formula or the application of leading textbook prescriptions. It is a complex, multidimensional process that entails careful analysis, critical thought and innovation. Clients aren’t looking for diagnosis – usually they’re looking for practical actions, clear execution paths and bottom line results that assist them in sustaining competitive advantage. RERIGHT is in the business of responsibility – we take our responsibility to action seriously, and invest time in understanding the conditions in which a strategic question arises.

Should you proceed with an acquisition? Can your operations move offshore? What will lift your new product line out of its inertia? Why aren’t your conglomerate businesses playing nicely? These are the types of questions that demand strategy with attention to implementation, change mangement and the development of managers as leaders.

Strategy - Management and Leadership

An important component of RERIGHT's strategic consulting is the support of management and leadership. But management requires a holistic definition in order to be truly useful to an organisation. Approaching the question of management from different perspectives will inevitably yield new insights into the responsibilities of a manager, and the possibilities open to a manager. Today, Management can be divided into four perspectives, namely 1) the organizational context, 2) the human factor, 3) managing paradoxes, and 4) entrepreneurship. These four perspectives are designed to highlight new dimensions of the roles and responsibilities conferred upon a management professional.

From the organizational context one is taught to recognize organizational forces. From the human factor perspective, the importance of personal and group dynamics in navigating aforementioned organizational forces is stressed. Once one considers the managerial paradox perspective, one can reconcile with the fact that trade-offs are a necessary evil when doing ones best to operate as a manager. The perspective of entrepreneurship provides a catalyst for managers to look ‘outward’, beyond their daily duties and controls to the underlying drivers of commerce – namely finding business. Sometimes described as consideration of the ‘bottom line’, having grounding management in an economic imperative ensures that the managerial effort achieves corporate objectives. We can see that multifaceted reflection of the nature of management has yielded new considerations for the well-rounded manager. Beyond these, one might also consider the perspectives of ‘leadership’, ‘accountability’, and ‘clarity’ – three new perspectives RERIGHT coined in order to identify other potential considerations for the manager.

Leadership is a perspective that emphasizes a manager’s obligations to provide an example for subordinates and superiors alike. By assuming a duty to leadership, managers ensure that an archetype for operational conduct is available to subordinate staff, and that an example of assuming responsibility to the company beyond ones own interests is demonstrated to peers and superior decision makers. The perspective of leadership is underscored by the increased direct liability some jurisdictions are applying to corporate executives – tying leaders to the real consequence of their actions, and linking the propriety and ethical conduct of an organisation to its managerial leadership.

Accountability is an extension of the notion of leadership. In this modern era, increased attention has fallen upon social accountability and corporate governance, providing the public and interested parties with a degree of transparency and assurance that corporations are servicing a common or social good. Just as the perspective of ‘entrepreneurship’ ties a manager to the objective of corporate wealth creation, the perspective of ‘accountability’ ties a manager to the objective of corporate responsibility to shareholders, society, and the environment. Accountability is the logical outcome of responsible leadership.

Clarity is a perspective concerned with the intellectual process of a manager. It may suffice to describe the various contexts and interplay of forces that define a manager’s considerations for action, and this will implicitly create a required ‘mindset’. However, explicitly considering management from the perspective of the required mindset may help to unearth new responsibilities or possibilities for the management concept. Therefore, ‘clarity’ is chosen as a representative trait for managers. When choosing between micro and macro level concerns, outward-facing entrepreneurship and inward human relations, the consideration of the organizational context or the deference to a social more, one is called upon as a manager to exhibit clarity – a clarity that allows one not to be confounded my the myriad forces and complexities characterizing the managerial duty. To make use of this perspective, one can frame a question: “What skill, requirement or possibility does the perspective of incorporating ‘clarity’ into management oblige?” One can then say that management may require an allocation of time to reflect and order thoughts, to balance engrossing day-to-day concerns with a more tempered contemplation of the demands of the business, to be mindful of where one’s mind is residing within the intellectual landscape, and to routinely compel oneself to deconstruct and reconstruct situations and challenge assumptions in order to maintain the highest level of clarity.

The combination of these perspectives affords a more complete notion of ‘the manager’, and ensures that emphasis is not inordinately placed in one isolated area of the contextual whole. This is of benefit as it will ensure managerial skills are more adaptable, transferable and responsive to changing conditions within the limits of any perspective on management.

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