status that may be absent in formal relationships. Leaders emerge within informal groups. As is true with leaders of formal groups, leaders of informal group initiate action, resolve differences of opinion and conflicts, and communicate values to nonmembers.
Informal groups are most helpful to the formal organization when they blend with it. Other positive aspects include providing a level of flexibility while still meeting organization goals, providing social values and stability to the organization, allowing more general supervision, and facilitating communication. Effective managers understand and use informal groups to benefit the organization. Combined, the formal and informal organizations are the actual organization. Managers ignore informal groups and informal leaders at their peril.
Strategic and Operational Planning
Strategic planning addresses the longer-term direction and goals selected by the organization through its governance and management in order to accomplish its goals. Strategic planning may also be called strategic management, which suggests the broader, more dynamic concept of fully integrated management and planning. An extension of strategic planning that seeks to affect the external environment is strategic issues management (SIM). SIM is a systematic process that proactively seeks to influence the external environment to make it more favorable to the organization rather than reacting to events after they occur. Operational planning focuses on the direction and activities of individual units and departments of the organization. The operational plan must be coordinated with and is subordinate to the strategic plan. Figure 2-5 shows the general characteristics of strategic and operational planning.
Contingency Planning in Public Health
In their work, public health managers face many unknowns. Contingency planning seeks to predict the events that will affect the organization’s ability to meet its mission; mitigates their potential negative implications; and, if possible, turns them into a public relations or political advantage. A well-known example of contingency planning in public health is planning for a natural disaster such as an epidemic of avian influenza or a manmade disaster such as a deliberate release of radioactive materials. These plans anticipate the demands of various scenarios, maximize