Now, more than ever before the need for strategic management in sports is evident. These unpredictable times are greatly influenced by the pandemic and other environmental issues. The conditions affect many sports organizations rendering them unable to manage strategically.
While limited strategic planning and basic financial forecasting may occur, it is not true strategic management. There’s a world of difference between planning—a C-Suite activity involving only the top leadership-- and strategic management-- involving everyone in the organization.
For it to take place, everyone has to be aware of the strategy used and the mission of the organization. They have to be able to internalize the strategy and understand their part in it. Employees must be able to verbalize the mission with their own words rather than simply memorize it. They must agree with it and identify with it.
These issues are not small. The difficulty in developing a supportive mission-oriented and strategic organizational culture is significant. Leaders and employees must be engaged. If the organization's culture is not supportive of the strategy, its implementation is impossible. Planning is less difficult than execution. In the face of the challenges of these times, the success of strategies requires new paradigms of strategic management.
Currently, many forces in the environment may complicate strategic management. People are increasingly working from home and demanding flexibility. Managing a virtual team is much more difficult than managing a team on site. At the same time, baby-boomer managers are retiring in ever-growing numbers and leadership positions are taken by generation X leaders or even millennials.
This creates a cultural shift in itself resulting in adjustment as leadership styles change. Technology is becoming a more important factor in interpersonal communication further limiting opportunities for face-to-face interactions. People tend to communicate via text and email more than in person or even by phone.
However, written communication is not as rich and does not allow non-verbal communication. It is likely to cause more miscommunication and misunderstandings. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of conflict that requires, ironically, face-to-face meetings to resolve and manage. It is a difficult cycle and managers are more and more challenged to keep up with the pace. This is further complicated by the fact that virtual work is increasingly asynchronous. Employees are having fewer and less synchronous interactions.
