Sharing in the Divine Life

Your heart shall swell with joy...

Isaiah 60:5

Jesus ... is fully human, body, soul and spirit. And yet we believe, as Christians, that this is the Son of God. Without confusion of his divine and human natures, he is the absolute in human form. Perhaps we can understand Jesus' identity as the Son of God more clearly by thinking of him in terms of the revelation of the Trinity.

That revelation affirms what the mystics of all religions have intuited: that the ultimate nature of infinite being is love. God, the ultimate reality, the absolute, in a way beyond our comprehension, is a community of persons. As the Father has life in himself and pours it into his Son, and they rejoice in it together in the procession of the Holy Spirit, so the Son who has life in himself, shares the divine life with the whole human family through the outpouring of the holy Spirit, and invites everyone to the banquet of eternal life.

Isaiah 60:5

Then you shall see and become radiant, And your heart shall swell with joy...

Linking Strategy to Structure

Should strategy drive structure or should structure drive strategy?

Having developed your options, it is important to consider how your organization would implement a selected strategy. part of addressing this is deciding whether the organization is structured in the right way to support the new strategy, or whether, despite all good intentions, the old organizational structure will lead to its failure.

Should strategy drive structure or should structure drive strategy? Strategy is clearly more important than structure, because by implementing a new strategy your team or organization can create the future. It is clear, therefore, that strategy must come first -- an organization must create the right strategy and then adjust its structure to ensure that the chosen strategy has the greatest chance of success.

ACTION POINT: Consider the following questions when evaluating strategy and structure:

• Can you change your company structure to better support your chosen strategy?
• Can you change your company structure in the longer term to open up more strategic options?
• As a last resort, can your strategy be changed or amended to better align it with your company structure?

Balancing Interests

...assess the balance of power, and consider this against your values and those of the organization.

Managing multiple stakeholders can often present a dilemma. For example, your investors want you to always be seeking to reduce costs, while your employees want to receive higher salaries. When making decisions that affect multiple stakeholders, use the information you have gathered in your analysis to assess the balance of power, and consider this against your values and those of the organization.

Possible stakeholders in your organization include:

• Investors - They want to know that their money is safe in your hands
• Employees - They want their loyalty and productivity to be rewarded
• Customers - They will decide whether they want to be associated with you
• Suppliers - They need to know that their invoices will be paid

Influences to your organization include:

• Industry Associations - Set standards and best practices
• Community - They are a source of the staff and support you need
• Trade Unions - They require their members to be treated well
• Competitors - They act in ways that may affect your options and influence your decisions
• Government - The can provide mutual support that may be a source of power
• Pressure Groups - They may put their cause above your future
• Media - They have the power to influence many, for good and for bad

ACTION POINT: Balance the needs of your stakeholders and understand the focus of your influences.

Involving Stakeholders

While all of the stakeholders in your organization are important, not all will have equal impact upon you.

Stakeholders are individuals or organizations that have an interest in how your organization is run. The ready availability of information, especially through the media and the Internet, means that stakeholders have an increasingly strong voice, and some may seek to influence your strategy. It is vital, therefore, to identify and manage your most important stakeholders.

While all of the stakeholders in your organization are important, not all will have equal impact upon you. Stakeholder mapping is a tool that can help you identify and manage the stakeholders that are most influential in you business. Start by identifying every stakeholder that has an interest in your organization. Then look at the names on your list:

• Determine each stake-holder's level of interest in your activities.
• Assess their level of power over your organization.
• Identify who are the most powerful and the most interested stakeholders.

Use this information to assess how important stakeholders will respond to different strategic options, and to plan how to influence them.

ACTION POINT: Know who your stakeholders are as well as their value and influence.

Painting Scenarios

...assessing how your organization would fare in each circumstance.

Some factors move unpredictably, so it is not possible to use historical data to predict future movements. For these, scenario planning is more appropriate. This form of planning involves painting alternative scenes -- images of your future business environment -- assessing how your organization would fare in each circumstance. A classic case is the price of oil, which fluctuates in response to a complex mix of political, financial, and production factors.

One scenario envisages oil prices remaining stable over three years; another has prices at 150 percent of current levels; and a third has them at 75 percent. How would your business be affected by each? How would each influence your strategy?

ACTION POINT: Paint alternate images of the future business environment to determine how you may react to them.

Forecasting

Forecasting works only when you make realistic and honest assumptions about your business and its environment.

Forecasting is the process of predicting the future based upon past and present trends. For example, if your salary bill has increased by a consistent three percent per annum for the previous 10 years, you can realistically extrapolate the rise for the next two years.

You can also carry out more sophisticated forecasts based on intelligence. For example, you may know that your sales are strongly influenced both by a competitor's activity and by consumer price inflation. By gaining intelligence on your competitors' projected activity, and economist's predictions of inflation, you can make an informed forecast of next year's sales. Forecasting works only when you make realistic and honest assumptions about your business and its environment.

ACTION POINT: Understand past trends and use the available intelligence to make informed forecasts.

Divine Love

Love each other... as I have loved you... John 13:34

Vulnerability means to be hurt over and over again without seeking to love less, but more. Divine love is sheer vulnerability -- sheer openness to giving. Hence, when it enters the world, either in the person of Jesus or in one of his disciples, it is certain to encounter persecution -- death many times over. But it will also encounter the joy of ever rising again ... Being vulnerable means loving one another as Christ loved us.

If we did not have to forgive people, we would have no way of manifesting God's forgiveness toward us. people who injure us are doing us a great favor because they are providing us with the opportunity of passing on the mercy that we have received. By showing mercy, we increase the mercy we receive. The best way to receive divine love is to give it away, and the more we pass on, the more we increase our capacity to receive.

John 13:34

I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

Reading the Future

No one can see what is to come,

Strategy is simple: just work out what the world will be like in five years and organize your resources and competencies to achieve a match. However, this raises the vital question -- how do you know what the world will look in five years? No one can see what is to come, but there are techniques that will help you visualize and plan for the future.

Analysis tools, such as SWOT, PESTLE, and Porter's 5 forces, are excellent for describing your current market(s) and business environment. Extrapolating beyond the present, however, is far more difficult, but is nonetheless essential when planning strategy. Two useful tools -- forecasting and scenario planning -- can help with this task.

ACTION POINT: Understand where you currently are and then look ahead to visualize and plan for the future.

Remaining Objective

...it is your responsibility to elevate the process beyond the personal agendas or opinions of stakeholders.

It can be hard to remain objective when deciding upon strategy. the final outcome is so important to the future of the organization that other factors, such as personalities and power politics within the organization inevitably have a strong influence on the strategy you opt for. However, it is your responsibility to elevate the process beyond the personal agendas or opinions of stakeholders.

Try to raise the level of debate by using objective scoring systems so that everyone can see the relative merits of each option. Calling in external consultants can help to free up objective thinking and help overcome barriers or inertia.

To test each of your strategic options against the criteria of suitability, acceptability, and feasibility, it helps to develop a simple scoring system rather than simply assigning a "yes" or a "no." Mark each option on a scale of one to 10 for each of the criteria, being honest and objective in your scoring. Add the scores for suitability, acceptability, and feasibility for each option to identify the best.

ACTION POINT: Objectively evaluate and score the strategic options you consider.

Assessing Feasibility

Strategic change requires time, effort, and money (TEM), so make a realistic assessment of your ability...

Feasibility addresses whether it is within your power and capabilities to implement a strategic option. Strategic change requires time, effort, and money (TEM), so make a realistic assessment of your ability to make it happen by asking questions such as:

• Is sufficient funding available? You may be a small team that could deliver a great new service if you have a million dollars, but is it possible for you to access that funding?
• Do we have the time available?
• Do we have the skills in-house (or could we access them) to make this option happen?
• Does your organizational culture support the change? Your management may be highly risk averse, for example, and block radical plans.

ACTION POINT: Know your strengths and what you have the ability to deliver on.

Assessing Acceptability

It is likely that you will be unable to please all stakeholders, so you will need to decide who are the most important.

Acceptability refers to whether a strategic option is likely to give worthwhile results for the key stakeholders -- usually management, shareholders, employees, and customers. This includes not just acceptable financial return, but also less quantifiable factors,such as risk (the impact on your brand's reputation, for example) and value to stakeholders.

It is likely that you will be unable to please all stakeholders, so you will need to decide who are the most important. To assess the acceptability of a strategic option, ask yourself questions such as:

• Will the financial return be acceptable?
• What are the risks of the option, and are they acceptable?
• How will this option affect each stakeholder group, and is this outcome acceptable?
• Will this option give the right balance of cost and benefits?

ACTION POINT: Ensure strategic direction is acceptable to the key stakeholders.

Assessing Suitability

Will it get us to where we want to be in the future?

Suitability measures how well a strategic option provides a good fit between your organization and its environment, now and in the future. To assess the suitability of an option, ask yourself questions such as:

• Will it get us to where we want to be in the future?
• Does it achieve the right balance between what we are good at and what the market wants?
• How will it impact on the organization?

Each option that passes the suitability test should then be considered for its acceptability and feasibility.

ACTION POINT: Remember that your strategy is based on assumptions that will inevitably be refined during the implementation process, so don't waste time drilling down to detailed implications of every eventuality.

Christian Spirituality

Come away...and rest a while. Mark 6:31

Every Christian, by virtue of the grace of baptism, has the vocation to oneness with the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Everyone needs some kind of practice in order to accomplish this vocation. Obviously, a rule of life cannot be as detailed for those living in the world as it is for people in a monastery. But everyone has to build his or her own kind of enclosure as far as one's duties allow, by setting aside a certain amount of time every day for prayer and spiritual reading. Also, perhaps, one may dedicate a day every month and a week every year, to being alone with the Lord. Jesus himself encouraged this in the Gospel when he said to the apostles...

Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest for a while.

Mark 6:31

Evaluating your Options II

You can devise your own set of criteria, but it may be better to rely on established measures.

Assess how valuable each of the options you are evaluating is to your organization by testing each one against some consistent criteria. You can devise your own set of criteria, but it may be better to rely on established measures. For example, a classic work on strategic management by Johnson, Scholes, and Whittington sets out three criteria for evaluating strategic options: suitability, acceptability, and feasibility.

Steps for planning and evaluating strategic options include:

• Gathering information - Analyze your resources and competencies. Look at the the business environment--growth, market structures, and broader economy.
• Develop Options - Identify possibilities for development--for example, can yo make profit from idle cash? Can you make better use of floor space?
• Assess the suitability of each option - Screen the options on the basis of whether they improve the competitive advantage of your organization.
• Assess acceptability - Ask if the option fits with your and your stakeholders expectations.
• Assess feasibility - Assess how possible it will be to put the strategy into action. What will be the barriers to implementation?
• Select the best fit strategy.

ACTION POINT: Evaluate your strategies, suitability, acceptability and feasibility.

Evaluating your Options

In reality, your range of strategic options is likely to be very wide...

Many managers develop a sixth sense for the market, and make strategic decisions based largely on instinct. However, even after you have worked in a particular industry for many years, you should always evaluate any decisions you make with a degree of objectivity.

When you create or review your strategy, it is likely that you will have many preconceptions about where the business should go, and it is all too easy to believe that your first solution is the right one. In reality, your range of strategic options is likely to be very wide--from continuing with business as usual, through to fundamental and revolutionary changes.

You will already have gathered information about your organization and its environment. Start by developing a number of options based on this information--some innovative and adventurous, some more conservative. Include the "do nothing" option as a base line. These options should be based on your sound research--the key threats and opportunities you face; your strengths and weaknesses; and the expectations of management and other stakeholders.

ACTION POINT: Work hard to identify your options--you may discover a less obvious opportunity that could be successful after a careful evaluation of the possibilities open to you.

Putting it in Writing

There is no formula for how a written strategy should be presented--every organization is different

When planning your strategy, it can be useful to write your ideas down. The discipline of producing a written, well-reasoned document helps to focus your mid on the questions you need to address and produces a record against which you can check your progress. It also allows others to scrutinize the strategy, which can be very helpful--if you ask a few trusted and knowledgeable colleagues for their opinions, they will often see things form a different perspective and may unlock new possibilities that hadn't occurred to you.

There is no formula for how a written strategy should be presented--every organization is different--but there are a few key points that it should address. Make sure that what you write is both believable and motivational in tone. Some tips on preparing a written strategy include:

• Describe what your organization does.
• Set out what the future world you will face looks like.
• Describe your sustainable competitive advantage.
• State why you will be in a strong position compared with your competitors.
• Define milestones of achievement, so you can monitor your progress.

ACTION POINT: Clarify your strategy by committing it to writing.

Defining the Ingredients

There is not shortage in the business world of overambitious strategies languishing in filing cabinets.

Your strategic vision will need the support of others in order to achieve its goals, and so must be compatible with the demands of your stakeholders. Some of these individuals and groups will have a direct interest in your strategy (for example, your staff, higher managers, and funders), while others--such as shareholders and pressure groups--may have an indirect interest. You will need to identify and obtain support from your most important stakeholders--if your strategy is to be successful. For example, the principal of a school has to take into account the financiers, regulatory authorities, the local community, and competitors (anticipating how they may react) when making strategic decisions.

Finally, your strategy must be capable of being implemented. There is not shortage in the business world of overambitious strategies languishing in filing cabinets. While a good strategy must be challenging, leading the organization into the future, it must also be understandable, practical, and rooted in reality.

ACTION POINT: Ensure your strategy can be implemented and that your stakeholders buy into it.

Creating a Good Strategy

Every successful strategy presents a vision and a plan for creating and maintaining competitive advantage in the future.

You know your market, are sure of your objectives, and understand your options. What you need now is to evaluate those options and create a vision, a plan to achieve it, and a clear understanding of how to make that plan work.

You need to consider many factors when drafting your strategy. Your responsibilities to your stakeholders, to your stated ethical principles and mission, and to society in general are important, but are ultimately subservient to return on investment (or the effective use of resources for non-profit organizations). So what does a good strategy look like?

Every successful strategy presents a vision and a plan for creating and maintaining competitive advantage in the future. It asks, and answers, questions such as:

• What services or products will be required in the next three to five years?
• Who will your competitors be?
• Why will you be more successful than them?

ACTION POINT: Understand the questions that will help you create a good strategy.

Desire For Interior Silence

He restores my soul...

Psalm 23:3

Have you ever experienced a few moments of interior silence? How would you describe it? Is there not a sense of a very deep, all-pervading peace, a sense of well being, and a delicate joy, all at once? Why is it such a difficult state to maintain or return to? It seems easier to forget about the whole experience than to be plagued by the pain of lingering outside a door that seems to be locked from the inside. Yet, in spite of this lingering pain, the repeated experience of interior silence is a need that everyone has in order to be fully human.

Our capacity for the transcendent is precisely what distinguishes us most from the rest of visible creation. It is what makes us most human.

Psalm 23: 1-3

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want.

H makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul...

Being a Specialist and Comparing the Three Strategies

focus strategy also carries more risk, because you are building up resources and competencies in only one narrow area.

Focus strategy involves an organization concentrating on one particular market or market niche and becoming expert in that area. Customers buy from that organization because they are the best in that field.

A focus strategy for an airline, for example, may be to fly only business-class passengers in private jets. There are many examples of focus strategy being used to great effect: German car manufacturer Porsche, for example, focuses only on sports cars and has a global reputation for doing so. However, focus strategy also carries more risk, because you are building up resources and competencies in only one narrow area.

Comparing the Three Strategies

Cost Leadership

Advantage - Can be easy to implement

Disadvantage - Can be difficult to sustain--you are vulnerable to being undercut by your competitors.

Differentiation

Advantage - Premium pricing can mean more money is available for activities that maintain the advantage, such as R&D

Disadvantage - The source of differentiation can become stale over time and new “extras” need to be developed.

Focus

Advantage - Can give very high profit margins and lead to a market-dominating position.

Disadvantage - Risky: Market niche may change or disappear; if you are successful, big firs may try to muscle in on your market.

ACTION POINT: Develop the strategy or combination of strategies that will maximize your position in the market.

Focusing on Cost, Adding Benefits

The cost of providing the extras must be less than the price premium they are prepared to pay.

Cost-leadership strategy positions an organization as the lowest-cost producer in a particular industry. Everything about the firm is designed to be low cost--labor, premises, materials, capital, and so on.

The firms products or services are comparable in quality and price to the rest of the market: profit comes from the difference between the low costs and the market price. A subdivision of the cost-leadership strategy is the “no-frills” strategy, where low-cost production is still sought but the products or services are acknowledged to be of more basic quality.

Differentiation strategy is a near opposite approach to cost leadership. A firm employing this strategy adds additional features to its products or services to make them above average in the market.

For example, where a no-frills airline may offer little airport support (or make passengers pay extra for it), a differentiating airline may include a limo to the airport and a private lounge in the price of its tickets. Key factors for success with a differentiation strategy are that customers must desire the extra features and be willing to pay a price premium for them. The cost of providing the extras must be less than the price premium they are prepared to pay.

ACTION POINT: Identify the features and benefits that customers are willing to pay extra for.

Three Generic Strategies

Each requires a particular philosophical approach to be applied throughout the whole organization.

A business strategy is unique to the organization and environment in which it operates. However, research conducted by Professor Michael Porter recognizes three generic organizational strategies that businesses and use to gain and maintain competitive advantage within a market: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. Each requires a particular philosophical approach to be applied throughout the whole organization.

You an choose to pursue one of the three strategies in its pure form or to devise a hybrid. If you do the latter, monitor the strategy regularly to ensure its clarity and integrity -- a hybrid can easily drift into compromise.

ACTION POINT: Know your strategy and regularly monitor it for clarity to prevent drift.

Assessing Positions

position brands on a scale from low to high quality and price

A basic way to look at strategic positioning within a market is to position brands on a scale from low to high quality and price. The example below maps out how a number of car brands might position themselves in a typical national market. Each has chosen to focus on particular market segments, and so reduce the number of competitors they have. Brand C, for example sells budget-range cars at the lower end of the price scale and so avoids competition with brands that are targeting customers with more money to spend.

STRATEGIC POSITION OF CAR BRANDS WITHIN A MARKET

• Brand A - $ Budget to $$Mid Range
• Brand B - $$Mid Range to $$$Executive
• Brand C - $ Budget
• Brand D - $Budget to $$Mid Range
• Brand E - $$$Executive to $$$$Luxury
• Brand F - $Budget to $$Mid Range
• Brand G - $$Mid Range to Executive
• Brand H - $$$$Luxury

ACTION POINT: Identify your target segment and know that of your competitors.

Positioning Yourself

you can reduce the destructive forces of competition.

The two coffee shops could avoid competition by targeting different kinds of customers rather than fighting over the same ones. One could choose to supply lower-quality take-out coffee that would appeal to those on a budget, while the other could provide more up market coffees and pastries in a stylish cafe to appeal to those with more income.

In this way, by actively targeting different customers to your competitors and choosing to serve only one market segment, you can reduce the destructive forces of competition. If you are successful and develop a dominant position in your chosen market segment, competitors may be intimidated and look for their own segment to move into.

ACTION POINT: Position your self to develop dominance in your market.

Gift of Wisdom: Centering Prayer

O taste and see that the Lord is good... Psalm 34:8

Is it really possible to taste God? The answer is yes, but we cannot bright it about by our own efforts. We can only prepare ourselves for it by reducing the obvious obstacles we can perceive and by allowing the action of divine love to purify our unconscious motivation. The Gift of Wisdom has a very important place in Centering Prayer because it is this gift that causes the prayer at times to be full of insights, delightful, and profoundly silent -- a silence that can almost be tasted or heard. The Gift of Wisdom communicates the mystery of God's presence as a personal experience. It brings to an end any doubts about God's love for us that we might have brought with us from early childhood, such as feelings of rejections or lack of self-worth. There is not greater affirmation of our goodness than to be affirmed by the Divine Presence.

You have taught me the way of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence. Acts 2:28