Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - By Marwan A. Alshammari - One lesson I have learned over my many years of studying strategy is that the blind adoption of any strategy without proper adjustments that seriously take into account the distinctive nature of the context in which the adopted strategy is implemented will end up in catastrophic failure.
One important and frequently featured insight in the literature on strategy is that when one encounters a problem, one should first determine the root causes of the problem and the underlying factors that worsened it and increased its negative implications, then start searching for the proper solutions in the immediate environment (mostly internally).
In the process, one seeks to ensure that available resources are relevant and sufficient to proceed to the next level of problem solving.
If a solution could not be found in the nearby environment, one starts searching in all relevant external environments for resources (including intangible) that helps one find a solution.
A factor that is crucial to ensuring a successful solving of the problem is the ability to accommodate any external prescription to one’s distinctive setting.
In 1634, William Wood noted that despite the very rude circumstances of the first new Englanders, they were able to deal with the lack of resources because they did not look at “abundance” as much as they focused on “competencies”.
This can provide inspiration and be a good example of how England became one of the G-8 countries after it focused on competencies, rather than complain about the lack of resources.
There is no doubt that all countries want to fix their economy, but fixing the economy the right way requires one to be frank, honest and transparent, as well as getting onboard all productive participants.
In order to succeed, one needs to proceed scientifically and realistically. This means that there must be a will to go beyond the surface and dig deeper for the root causes of one’s economic struggle and complications.
There must exist a will to list those causes transparently, inform both the public and the decision makers about them, and make them known to all parties concerned.
On this account, one needs to focus on the development of a national education programme that focuses on promoting and enhancing the knowledge of economic issues in primary and secondary schools as well as in universities.
This creates an informed society and improves citizens’ behaviour.
Part of developmental efforts must be directed towards improving the practical curriculum for university students in all majors; it should start in the first year so that youth can be trained in basic managerial, economic, social and scientific skills, knowledge and abilities.
In parallel, integration mechanisms should be developed in order to bring together talented individuals that can build operational processes through which to ensure the flow of thoughtful inputs into the decision-making channels, and thus guarantee a positive outcome with clear agenda, achievable goals, and monitoring and evaluation tools.
The responsibility of such integrative teams should be to study all the existing strengths and positives, and categorise them clearly so they can then be used in later stages.
All current and future challenges must be studied scientifically and realistically and diagnosed the right way; then experts should compare strengths and challenges scientifically, which will lead to the development of local solutions, using available capabilities and resources.
Throughout the learning and development process, people should be trained to become dynamic and creative, develop dynamic capabilities and gain greater knowledge in all matters related to their expertise.
In his 1971 book “A theory of justice”, John Rawls called for a fair shot for each and every individual in a society at each and every level (fairness) where elites and interest groups cannot design, rule and manipulate the system to their own favour.
As long as a system is purposefully designed to serve a very limited number of people, it will never get public consensus, and if the majority is not engaged in the political process (project), a country can never succeed.
It is very important for us all to realise that we can never achieve our collective goals and get our country moving forward if we do not work together.
Participative approach can be of great help and can give us a chance to fix many problems that seem to be persistent.
We just need to engage in the first step, which is the most important: transparency that leads to regaining part of the damaged trust between the major constituencies of our nation.
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