Strategic Management in Policing: The Role of the Strategic Manager
By Kim Charrier, Strategic Manager, Phoenix Police Department, Arizona
Strategic management is a process by which managers choose a set of
actions that will allow their organization to attain one or more of its
long-term goals and achieve superior performance.
Successful police executives
are driving organizational change through strategic management-an
ongoing process that seeks opportunities to enhance operational
efficiencies by identifying internal issues and external influences that
hinder organizational sustainability. It focuses on management's
responsibility for implementation to create a customer-focused,
high-performance learning organization. Strategic managers integrate
strategic planning with other management systems.
Executives know
that community policing, external and internal environments, political
influences, homeland security, and new technologies are molding the
profession into a more engaging system. Today, policing has evolved into
a highly complex structure that requires dynamic leadership paradigms
and an organization that is adaptable to a fast-paced world.
To
be successful in today's law enforcement environment, police executives
must set the course with strategic management. Known as the
"institutional brain" of a modern public organization, strategic
management takes into account systems-thinking approaches while tapping
into human emotions that drive organizational change.1
Strategic
management is a systems management approach that uses active leaders in
the organization to move change across organizational boundaries. A
small team of personnel is assembled to analyze operational functions,
identify inefficiencies, review systems integration, and detect gaps in
management communications that hinder performance. In identifying
organizational barriers, whether they are operational or caused by human
dynamics, strategic managers are able to recommend strategies to the
police executive to improve operations and quicken transitions, while
working with managers to soften human resistance to change.
Although
the police executive has the vision, the role of guiding the agency
toward organizational renewal and change is the responsibility of all
managers. Major transformation in an organization cannot rest with one
individual but should be guided by teams under the direction of
strategic managers. Police executives should scan their talent pools for
command and support staff members who have the expertise, credibility,
and competence to get the job done. Working with the chief executive and
top managers, strategic managers assist in expediting change by
educating, training, and marketing the reasons for change to management
staff to make the vision a reality.
Impediments to Change
Police
chiefs are expected to implement theoretical frameworks that support
contemporary leadership models such as learning organizations,
enlightened leadership, or the consensus model. Although most police
executives would agree with the argument for developing more adaptive
organizations, they realize that the difficulty lies in implementation
and the ability to affect the behavior and attitudes of managers to
facilitate change.
As leaders define the vision of the police
agency, they must also identify mechanisms to drive change. One
important aspect often overlooked is the potential utility of the
managerial influence in the organization. Managers interpret the vision
as expressed by the chief and will choose either to accept or to reject
it. The managers then communicate the vision, in either a positive or a
negative manner, to employees.
Police executives recognize the
fact that first-line supervisors are responsible for implementation and
ensuring policy compliance of the operational units. However, if the
middle managers are not properly prepared and informed by the executive,
they will fail to provide supervisors with the rationale for
organizational renewal, hampering implementation by the supervisors. It
is important to recognize that the rate of change is not primarily
driven by operational procedures but rather by the emotional commitment
to, or ownership of, the vision. Middle managers must excite change in
supervisors, and this can only happen when the middle managers believe
in the vision and are excited about the change.
To offset these
challenges and to help the chief transform vision into actual practice,
police executives are turning to a strategic manager. The strategic
manager provides the chief with a person who serves as an instrument to
navigate the human side of change, while using strategic planning as the
tool to drive new operational functions. In this manner the strategic
manager becomes a resource for all levels of management to help them
institute change and keep the excitement and momentum of the change
moving.
How a Strategic Manager Can Work for an Organization
The key purpose of strategic management is to enhance the organization's performance by establishing operational strategies across organizational boundaries while addressing employees' resistance to change. Core competencies require the strategic manager to do any of the following:
- Conduct research to support and coordinate the department's strategic plan
- Identify adjustments in organizational designs
- Identify potential barriers or gaps created by human system resistance
- Monitor and assess departmental progress toward strategic planning goals
- Serve as the department liaison with external stakeholders in planning projects
- Review program research to determine applicability to departmental needs
- Identify proactive approaches to issues through trend analysis and predictive indicators
- Work to drive organizational change through marketing and educating personnel on best practice methods
- Assist middle managers in navigating the change process
- Enhance efficiency by evaluating operational systems across organizational lines
Strategic
managers, working as a team with other agency managers, can help top
management drive cultural change. The configuration of the strategic
management team is dependent upon the complexity of the change and the
organization. In smaller organizations one person can serve as the
strategic manager working with supervisors to implement the vision and
effect change. In larger organizations it may involve several persons in
the role of strategic managers crossing many working divisional lines
and teaming with managers from various units.
Whatever
configuration used, in order to be successful the strategic managers
must have the continuous support of the police chief, a strong knowledge
base, the skills to work with staff, commitment to the organization,
and energy. Regular and frequent communication between the chief and the
strategic management team is essential. These strategic management
teams will oversee quality control, strive to ensure consistency in
performance, provide immediate feedback, and interact with managers at
all levels. They guide the strategic plan, working not to control but to
help establish new behaviors.
Why Employ Strategic Managers?
John Kotter notes in his Harvard Business Review article "Why Transformation Efforts Fail" that executives may initiate a new approach or vision, but they often fail to carry the vision to the point of institutionalization.2 To institutionalize a vision it is necessary to keep in mind that employees are both suppliers and customers of change; they must participate in the change process.
Strategic
managers navigate the change process, drive the vision, and keep it
alive through implementation to change the culture of the organization.
In order to reduce resistance to change and the fear of the unknown,
strategic managers must improve the opportunities for employees to
influence and control the change process. Input allows for the design of
better solutions by allowing managers to look at problems from
different perspectives. Thus, the organization achieves a faster
start-up and implementation with a better flow of information.
Peter Senge's definition of organizational change is learning to do new things or the same things for different reasons.3
People change when they want to learn, which is why strategic managers
must articulate and market the reasons for change up and down the chain
of command. When employees understand the need for change, they begin to
interpret what that means for them. Employees do not think in terms of
maximizing the value of organizational change without first thinking
about how it affects them. This reflective conversation and thought
affects learning as well as the degree to which organizational renewal
will be accepted. Therefore, communication becomes a key factor in
affecting the culture and climate of the organization.
Informal
interaction establishes certain attitudes, understandings, customs, and
habits that create the condition under which formal organization may
arise.4 The possibility of accepting a common purpose is
communicated, and the exchange of the information influences the state
of mind in which there is a conscious decision to cooperate. Therefore,
the informal interaction compels a certain amount of formal emergence
into the change process.
Middle managers are key players in this
formal emergence of organizational change because they move the process.
As top executives set the course for the ship of change, it is the
middle manager who determines the speed in the engine room. Top
management typically instructs middle managers on the new vision, and
once it starts, the momentum shifts, and it becomes the responsibility
of middle managers to secure change. However, middle managers are
typically left alone in their efforts, taking on the responsibility for,
and risks of, implementation.
Line staff has very little
interaction with police executives. However, officers are more likely to
have direct interaction with their precinct commander or captain.
Middle managers are the link between top management making policy and
the first-line supervisor implementing policy. Therefore, it is the
first-line supervisor who ultimately decides the rate of change. The
police chief must sell the new paradigm to the middle manager who in
turn is responsible for exciting a sense of urgency in their lieutenants
and sergeants. If middle managers are resistant to the ideology, then
implementation is not possible.
It takes personal commitment from
police managers to foster credibility for the new paradigm in the eyes
of the employees, and managers must demonstrate the behaviors in order
to ask for commitment from others. As the police chief articulates the
importance of organizational renewal in face-to-face interactions with
middle managers, it is the responsibility of strategic managers to
provide continuous education and support on the subject. Strategic
managers support middle managers in navigating change by educating
personnel on best practice methods for guiding renewal efforts. These
actions enhance the organization's creditability in the eyes of line
staff while reducing anxiety caused by the change process.
Five Key Factors
There are five key factors in transforming the police organization:
1. The appointment of strategic managers to move the change process. In order to have credibility, strategic managers must possess the expertise, competence and demonstrate the ability to excite change. Although all of management is responsible for the change process, the role of the strategic manager is to guide the process. Therefore, they should be appointed to the task and formally announced to the organization by the police chief. Their role should be defined as those sanctioned to carry the vision forward and assist in navigating change.
1. The appointment of strategic managers to move the change process. In order to have credibility, strategic managers must possess the expertise, competence and demonstrate the ability to excite change. Although all of management is responsible for the change process, the role of the strategic manager is to guide the process. Therefore, they should be appointed to the task and formally announced to the organization by the police chief. Their role should be defined as those sanctioned to carry the vision forward and assist in navigating change.
Strategic
management teams guide and support managers in reducing resistance to
change and demonstrating best-practice methods. They carry the torch for
the department by marketing the strategies and keeping the new paradigm
in the forefront. Strategic managers are the designated resource for
information and questions. They work to institute, monitor, and when
necessary adjust the change process.
2. The commitment of top executives to excite middle managers about change.
Most middle managers will be concerned with how change will affect
their positional power and the risk involved. Venturing into the unknown
is a concern for all employees, but typically the brunt of the
responsibility will rest with the middle manager. To be successful the
leader must excite middle managers about the vision for change.
Executives must encourage risk taking and stepping outside traditional
policing methods while demonstrating some tolerance for mistakes.
3. The middle manager's commitment to the change process.
It determines the rate of implementation. In order to be credible in
the eyes of their subordinates, the middle managers must demonstrate
personal commitment to the transformational process through their own
behavior and actions. In doing so, they lead by example and start to
gain consensus from others. Therefore, as the middle mangers sets the
course for those under their span of control, the strategic manager
works with the middle manger's management staff to move toward the
vision of the police executive.
4. A change in the police culture and climate.
Police executives cannot navigate change toward organizational renewal
without addressing police culture and climate. Formal and informal
interactions of employees drive organizational change. In order to be
successful in a transformational process, the organization must
institute the operational model while simultaneously providing a
mechanism to address employees' fears that lead to resistance. Strategic
management teams address the human side of change while adjusting
operational procedures that drive change.
5. Communication of the vision and urgency for change.
Organizations need an easy-to-read document that outlines the road map
for change. Strategic managers must develop a marketing strategy that
informs, educates, and provides examples that demonstrate desired
behaviors. The document must be readily available, referred to
frequently, and consistently talked about. Pulling it off the shelf once
or twice a year to check off activities done does not mean the spirit
of the strategy is being followed.
Finally, each stage of
change results in a greater impact on the organization and generates
more energy. As employees are trained, educated, and begin to
incorporate new strategies, they learn the new culture of the
organization as well as the functions of their position. These cultural
changes are then communicated informally to various members of the
department. By challenging employees to rethink their purpose and
methods, the agency can identify gaps in organizational design and the
effects of social controls on organizational culture. This provides for
the opportunity for incremental changes and shifts in culture toward
organizational renewal.
1 J. Koteen, Strategic Management in Public and Nonprofit Organizations, 2nd ed. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997).2 John Kotter, "Why Transformation Efforts Fail," Harvard Business Review (March-April 1995): 59-67.
3 Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1994).
4 C. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939).
