Strategic Policy Design

A Practitioner's Guide to Statecraft

Jack C. Chow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781032474694
  9781482239928
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000046649
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Modern organizations, whether public or private, are animated by a universal imperative: to achieve prominent goals that fulfill their mandates and uphold deeply held values and ideals. To realize this imperative, leaders entrusted to pursue organizational missions need to exercise a core set of strategic skills, discern opportunities, identify worthy goals, and implement pursuing actions. Strategic Policy Design introduces an integrated architecture for strategic thinking that enhances leadership skills in gauging conditions and crystallizing plans. This framework promotes a structured approach to strategic tasks by offering templates for decision making, from articulating a strategic mission, understanding the environment in which an organization operates, and rallying people and resources toward attaining strategic goals to a portable, versatile framework for the development and writing of strategy-oriented communications.

For practitioners of policy, this book offers clarity of strategic thinking and introduces a new framework with which to perceive policy environments, identify and define goals, and organize strategies. For students, this book explores the skill and art in exercising leadership, encompassing both pragmatism and idealism. By learning and applying the showcased techniques, students will be equipped with a heightened awareness of policy domains, goal construction, and operational planning. Students in public-sector studies will find this book of interest, as will those studying political science, public administration, law, foreign affairs, international development, history, military sciences, and similar majors. The organizational perspective in strategy will also appeal to students in both business and non-profit sectors.

Part 1
The Strategic Mission

1
The VIPs of Leadership

Strategic mission is a calling that activates people toward achieving a set of meaningful outcomes that fulfill their own needs and interests. It motivates as a call to action, summoning believers and followers, and enlisting their allegiances and energies to embark upon a particular quest, which can be arduous and even dangerous. Strategic mission animates an overarching, enduring purpose that resonates in the mindsets of adherents. By holding forth that its purpose persists even beyond a lifetime, many a strategic mission is perpetuated by supporters across successive generations.

Frequently articulated in the form of an organizational mission statement, strategic mission also expresses the values and principles of prime importance endorsed by the group. In contrast to a mission of a tactical or operational nature, a mission that is strategic backs a prevailing cause that defines a group’s core identity, essential aspirations, and ultimate goals.

A fundamental divide among organizational missions is that which separates the for-profit and non-profit sectors, which are also commonly classified as being private or public sectors, respectively. For-profit entities, mainly businesses, are formed with the specific purpose of creating and selling a good or a service and in so doing, produce a financial gain that is then shared among those involved in the enterprise, such as shareholders, employees, and managers. The central quest of companies is to compete and ultimately prevail in the marketplace and thereby earn a profit.

The primary mission of non-profit organizations is to serve and create value for the citizenry at large and to better particular constituencies. Prominent among non-profit organizations are those that are created by governments with the sovereign authority to create, operate, and disband them. Most government agencies and departments are focused on serving intra-national, or domestic, populations, but a notable number, such as the international organizations of the United Nations system, makes use of authorities conferred by nations to operate regionally or globally to pursue their missions. A modern trend is the growth of privately constituted non-profit groups apart from government, commonly known as NGOs or non-governmental organizations. NGOs and other non-profits, such as philanthropies and civic organizations, are dedicated to missions that are rooted in raising the public good independently, often in concert with, but sometimes at odds against, government.

The central quest by public organizations is to improve the common needs and space shared by broad swaths of people, or to confront many types of problems or conflicts affecting them. The strategic mission of the public sector is focused more upon creating value across various categories, such as social, cultural, political, and broadly shared economic benefits, rather than financial profit. Still, in the pursuit of their missions, public sector organizations must contend with prevailing economic conditions to assure their own financial viability and may even participate in markets to support their core functions.

One mnemonic way to think about the difference between the strategic missions of private versus public sector organizations is to consider that private companies seek to produce profits in the form of “income” whereas public groups seek to produce a particular “outcome.” The complexities and intractabilities of many modern problems have given rise to alliances, partnerships, and coalitions that combine efforts from public as well as private sectors, based on shared interests and diversity of capabilities.¹ A commonality shared by both sectors is the pursuit of a sustainable reward, a benefit that contributes to and is part of a prevailing purpose. Entities from both sectors seek to produce a gain that is meaningful and represents an evolution of the accounting identity common in the private sector, standardly known as ROE or the return-on-equity invested, to a newly coined form of ROE: “Return-on-Effort,” with the effort incorporating both tangible and intangible forms of inputs, not solely financial. Examples of intangible forms of input might include social media influence or trading of political capital.

The quest held forth by a strategic mission, whether of a private or public nature, is a prospective journey having an origin, a destination, a pathway, and the means for pursuit. An origin may be literal, such as a physical starting point for a journey across air, land, sea, or space. Origins can be also figurative, such as a historical or cultural reference that establishes what a force is changing. The choice of the starting point is significant because it becomes the reference point against which progress is gauged as the mission unfolds. How an origin of an issue is defined and expressed establishes the opening narrative of a storyline.

The organizational journey transits a pathway, or the necessary action steps and sequences to reach the destination. A set of means is the assets, such as personnel, tools, instruments, even vehicles, available to implement steps on the pathway. The mission culminates in its destination, the endpoint that achieves a desired result. For enduring missions, a high ideal can be upheld as a perpetual task, or it can be set forth as a series of goals for every generation to achieve.

All four attributes of the journey—origins, destinations, pathways, and means—involve options, or choices among available alternatives. Leaders making these choices often do so on the basis of trying to maximize a benefit or to minimize a cost. Some choices are made on the basis of expediency, whereas others are made on the basis of calculation and anticipation. In particular, how a journey is framed and described—defining the original problem, promoting a preferred remedy, and declaring a desired goal—is frequently slanted toward shaping perceptions and evoking certain emotions.

If a strategic mission of organizations can be described as a journey, then what motivates people to join? People are motivated by their interests, what they perceive to be their primary needs and wants. Often those interests can be personal and internalized—needing to eat, earning a living, paying debts. Human are also emotional beings, endowed from birth with feelings and primal motivations. Inner drives seek a fulfillment, a satisfaction that comes about from achievement. To achieve these ends and derive satisfaction, people often join groups to pursue interests that are above and beyond themselves. When people with different skills band together, it allows them to attain goals that are more difficult and complex than what individuals could achieve by themselves. Affiliations also contribute to people’s sense of identity and provide an added means to give substance to their beliefs. At its best, a strategic mission sustains a human motivation to participate in a higher purpose that goes beyond one’s own concerns to enlist in a grander cause that promises meaning and fulfillment.

Once constituted, the organization itself assimilates the emotional as well as rational motives of its human authors. To pursue its assigned cause, the entity is organized and formulated to implement pragmatic duties, such as meeting payrolls and paying bills. The embedded risk is that over time these prosaic functions will demand more time and attention of senior leaders and, if not managed, the collective force of everyday tasks can overcome and drain the expressive, advocacy functions of the organization to the point of discouragement and even disillusionment.² Bureaucracy becomes the twin sibling who countervails its emotional partner. Consequentially, a leader must harness and master two primal forces arising in organizations, that of its rational, task-oriented functions and that of its emotional, mission-animating functions.

In moving an organization forward on its mission, a leader must further contend with two primary forces involving people and their interests: the inherent self-interest of individuals and the collective interest of the group at large. Self-interest can act as a dis-associative, or distractive, force whereby the interests of individuals tend to pull them away from the interests of the group, whereas a collective interest can act as an associative, or attractive, force that draws people inward to work together. These two motivating forces can either be in alignment or be in conflict. When self-interest is in alignment with the group’s interests, morale can be uplifting and implementation can be synchronous. But when self-interest varies from the interests of the whole, morale can plummet from dissension, and operations can degrade from strife or departures. The challenge for the leader is to recognize individuals’ natural proclivity to act in their own self-interest and to find ways to align them toward mutual interests.

When presented with a leader’s directive, many individuals think instinctively and ask in self-interest: “What’s in it for me?” To nudge those tendencies toward a common cause, the leader can appeal to a higher level of motive by declaring three propositions:

• What Lies Above Us
• What Lies Ahead of Us
• What Lies Within Us

For each of these propositions, a useful mnemonic, or memory prompt, to use are three sets of leadership “VIPs:”

• 1. What Lies Above Us
  • Values—the standards of behavior and of status deemed venerable to uphold
  • Ideals—the ultimate, supreme standards one aspires to reach
  • Principles—the maxims that guide action on a pragmatic level
  • The Lift: The Appeal to a Higher Cause
• 2. What Lies Ahead of Us
  • Vision—a clear definition on what changes could happen and what a future might look like through action
  • Ideas—thoughts on how a vision could come about through the actions and assets of people
  • Purpose—the potential benefits that arise when a vision is finally and fully attained
  • The Drive: The Appeal to a Better Future
• 3. What Lies Within Us
  • Valor and Virtue—the courage and integrity with which to recognize a higher cause and to act toward a purpose
  • Inspiration and Imagination—the wellspring of thought and motivation that generates new ideas
  • Passion and Perseverance—the emotional drive, enthusiasm, and resilience with which to overcome challenges and to achieve a goal
  • The Spark: The Appeal to Inner Strengths

These three VIP groupings can be summarized as the Lift, the Drive, and the Spark: the mission that uplifts spirits, the forward motion toward a fulfilling future, and the catalyst that instigates the journey.

These three sets of VIPs in an acronymic format is a modern reworking of Aristotle’s classic rhetorical strategy of deploying ethos, logos, and pathos. The ancient Greek philosopher’s three principles concisely capture how a leader’s ability to understand the audience’s standing, reasoning, and feeling are the basis for argument and persuasion.³ Just as Aristotle advanced his concepts to promote better oration, these sets of VIPs are a memorable way to formulate a unifying message.

Notes

1 Elisabetta Iossa and David Martimort, “Risk Allocation and the Costs and Benefits of Public-Private Partnerships,” The RAND Journal of Economics, 43(3) (2012): 442–474. doi:10.1111/j.1756–2171.2012.00181.x (accessed July 15, 2019).

2 Linda Putnam and Dennis Mumby, “Organizations, Emotion and the Myth of Rationality,” in S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in Organizations (London: Sage, 1993), 36–57.

3 Purdue University Online Writing Lab, “Aristotle’s Rhetorical Situation.” https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/rhetorical_situation/aristotles_rhetorical_situation.html (accessed Oct. 19, 2018).

2
The Strategic Mission Cycle

An organization’s strategic mission is its commitment to an enduring purpose that is meaningful and fulfilling. Such a commitment means that the particular purpose holds an important core value to the group worthy of its time, energy, and resources. An enduring purpose is one that is lasting and holds its meaning over time. An enduring purpose is also sustainable in that it also holds its value over time.

To accomplish long-lasting and complex aims, groups assemble in order to harness the specialized talents of individuals and deploy them in particular roles through coordination and leadership. As many purposes take time to realize, different kinds of groups are formed to last beyond the lifetimes of individuals and achieve continuity, even permanency in their pursuits. Corporations, institutions, and governments are examples of embodiments formed in the pursuit of purpose that can span generations.

Over time, the conditions a group faces in achieving goals in keeping with its mission will vary, and often dramatically so. Economic competition, technological transformations, political revolutions, and social upheavals are among the many forces that can upend an organization’s operating environment. For an organization to be successful in fulfilling its central purpose, it must be resilient and adaptive enough to change its tactics and strategies.

Amid the complexities and uncertainties, it becomes easy for leaders to become distracted or overwhelmed. A vision of the way forward can become fractioned by problems, breakdowns, and crises. Divided attention then can open new vulnerabilities, which leads to further fractionation of a leader’s energies. Consequent frustration and failure may doom the mission, and even the organization.

To guide the active leader, it helps to have a roadmap, or a working model, with which to formulate a strategic mission and to determine the major tasks that build and shape the mission.

What follows is the Strategic Mission Cycle, a new model that incorporates critical components that are linked and mutually supportive. What makes this model unique is its use of twelve contributory concepts that start with the letter “I,” arrayed within a circle like the hours on a clock (Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 Twelve I’s of the mission cycle

What follows is an elaboration of each of these twelve I concepts in turn.

1. Identity

The mission cycle starts with Identity, the self-definition of oneself and any group to which one belongs. Identity is the answer given by oneself to the questions “Who am I?” or “Who are we?” Identity is fundamental to one’s self-regard and self-esteem. Identity establishes one’s core sense of place in the world and one’s relationship to others. Extending from a person’s core identity are the person’s bonds and attachments to others with similar interests and outlooks. This web of attachments gives shape to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1 The Strategic Mission
• PART 2 The Strategic Domain
• PART 3 The Strategic Goal
• PART 4 The Strategic Plan
• Index