Power and Strategy Execution

Relating to Sun Zi Art of War on Army Organization. After reading Making Strategy Work, Chapter Nine. I finally notice a small difference between military and business. A point that is not specified in most of the military works that I have read.

In business, there is such a thing as power influence from other departments which is something that is not, at least commonly, seen in war. I think this may have derived from the very small difference between war and business.

According to the book, power by a certain department in a company is a result of resource allocation and functions. For example, a certain department may have certain things, that arises from resources it has or dept's functions, that another department wants in order to function. This created a dependece and in the end, power can be wield to influence this other department. And given human nature, each individual department would like to retain and perpetuate its power. This would then have an influence on strategy execution. This desire to perpetuate power is what is commonly known as office politics.

The department that wields the most power will have an influence on whether the strategy would be executed successfully. So high level management, please take note of how much power you have given to specific departments through resource allocation and function scope (a result of structure). Having too much power concentrated on one or a few departments could jeopardise the successful exceution of strategy.