How to Decide If the Flight was Successful

If a large percentage of the flock reaches the destination in a condition to continue, the flight has been a success. The organization like the geese has to expect some casualties. To succeed, the energy, creativity and resources of the organization must have been used. If there are parts of the organization that have not being used, the question must arise, why are they in the organization?

Burgelman et al. (2001) ask and answer the question "what strategies, policies, practices, and decisions result in successful management of high-technology enterprises?" Six themes of success are listed: (1) business focus, (2) adaptability, (3) organizational cohesion, (4) entrepreneurial culture, (5) sense of integrity, and (6) hands-on top management. All are controlled or influenced by the organizational strategy. Unless each and every one of the organizations resources is in harmony, an organization cannot have succeeded. If IT strategy (and all other strategies) are harmonized into a single business strategy, then the organization can claim to have a holistic business focus, to have organizational cohesion, and to have a sense of integrity. Integrity can be defined as "the state or quality of being entire or complete; wholeness; entireness; unbroken state; as, the integrity of an empire." A disharmonized strategy certainly cannot be regarded as being honest, fair or open, other attributes of integrity.