A Strategic Planning Case Study Alpha Technologies is a $1.7 billion technology company with offices throughout the world. It was composed of a number of different units, gathered together over time through acquisitions and mergers, so that a central problem for leaders was developing an integrated strategy. In response, company leaders developed a strategic planning process that required in-depth analysis of competitors, market conditions, customer needs, and product lines. Executives consulted one another to develop these departmental strategies, but the company became increasingly anxious that implementing these strategies would prove too difficult to carry out effectively because of internal barriers to change. A strategic human resources management (SHRM) process was created so that the internal dynamics of strategy implementation could be understood. A small employee team, made up of individuals one or two levels below the senior team, was appointed to gather data from the organization about the factors that would support or inhibit the organizations implementation of its strategy. Areas for analysis included anything from organizational practices and resources to management capabilities. In a 3-day session, the employee data gathering team returned to share the data with top leaders, who listened to the presentation of data and jointly diagnosed the results and planned actions to take based on the feedback. The team analyzed the organizational culture, satisfaction levels of stakeholders such as customers and employees, leadership effectiveness, career development and training, the organizations ability to undertake interdepartmental coordination, and more. In one division in particular, some difficult and honest feedback was shared. The employee task force reported that while the division was currently successful, future threats could undermine success due to a number of interpersonal and internal factors. These included low morale, a top-down management style in the division, low cross-functional interaction between departments, and poor upward and downward communication. As a result, the president of the division agreed to make certain changes to his own behavior, cross-functional management teams were created, and the senior team worked on its own team functioning. Other departments made staffing or role changes. In still other cases, disagreements about the overall division direction and strategy surfaced. Task force members reported being anxious about sharing the data, but that once the issues were raised, they did not experience any retribution for honest feedback. The process resulted in organizational members being allowed to discuss the undiscussable (Beer & Eisenstat, 1996, p. 608), though this remains a challenge outside of the SHRM process. A higher level of involvement of employees and connections to senior management has opened up avenues for feedback and participation. Top executives say that the development of the companys overall strategic agenda relies to a significant extent on the SHRM process. While the process continues to be refined and is far from perfect, the strength of these interventions is that because they are highly structured and consultant led, they allow organizations composed of individuals who may not possess sophisticated inquiry skills to raise and address collectively difficult issues (Beer & Eisenstat, 1996, p. 617).

What are the main findings from this case ?