Departure into the fluid

The only certainty of today's corporate management is the lack of certainty. The sword of Damocles of forecast uncertainty hangs over all entrepreneurial decisions. Decision-makers must be aware of this. The consequence of this situation is to protect oneself against the unforeseen. However, by quickly taking advantage of opportunities that emerge from unknown areas and by identifying risks at an early stage, a company can be managed more securely.

temporary staff system

In this turbulent world, which can hardly be reliably interpreted and in which no reliable forecasts are possible, managing a company without a strategy becomes a game of hasard. The usual strategy, to speak with Helmuth von Moltke, is a "system of temps" or a system of if/then considerations: What would we do if our competitor beat us to the punch with a better product at a lower price? How do we deal with a new technology? How do we behave if two competitors merge?

However, essential strategic considerations should not be carried out according to the top-down model. According to this model, the management team first formulates the strategy. The middle managers redefine the corresponding action plans and the employees at the lower levels of responsibility implement them. The top-down model is outdated by the speed of change, the complexity of interrelationships, and new information technologies.

Leaders who take into account the conditions of the times give their subordinates insight into their strategic intentions. Management discloses to employees what the company wants and why it wants it. They invite the managers to participate creatively and to further develop the strategy. They give them the freedom to work with

Effective strategy formulation and implementation are the result of collective efforts.

to draw up and implement the action plans using the resources available.

Respect collectivity

A modern management communicates with its executives in such a way that they see a whole before parts, can make a useful contribution to it efficiently. The involvement of managers is of great importance if only because it ensures that the action plans are formulated with on the basis of expertise that the company's management is hardly aware of in detail and often could not even assess.

Under the conditions of the current discontinuity, a company would primarily have to develop the ability not to be maneuvered into the defensive by change, but to be spurred on by the better prepared competition. Only if managers and, in descending order, their employees are involved in the strategy process will success be achieved.

Sensitizing managers and employees to the ongoing confrontation of dynamic realities, getting everyone properly attuned to it and encouraging them to collaborate on the resulting tasks is one of the central tasks of management today.

Entrepreneurial values

Concerted action under conditions of uncertainty requires clear entrepreneurial values as well as foresight in measuring success. Short-sightedness is the most dangerous opponent of the necessary, unbiased, probing foresight at all levels. To be able to turn the unforeseen into water on one's own mills requires heads that are free of the immediate pressure to succeed and that, for reasons of self-preservation, do not overlook the better long-term opportunity behind the quick chance - or ignore an emerging danger for the sake of still possible quick success.

Company-wide, company-serving work under various levels of uncertainty requires not being exposed to the pressure of constantly having to prove oneself directly and to be measured against the achievement of constantly raised goals. This also defines self-initiative, because its original meaning is: "to develop initiative for the good of the whole as part of the whole", to keep one's eyes open in the internal as well as external context, - in order to offer assistance and benefit in a collegial manner as well as in the customer relationship.

Promoting corporate culture

This brings back into play a word that has been strained into platitude: corporate culture. Thinking and acting from the "we" rather than the "I" perspective needs a "platform": the "we" as defined by the company.

Attitudes and attitudes, expressed in behaviours, play the key roles.

and each individual manager embodied and exemplified. The much striven for spirit of the house is characterized by one word: Role model.

Only behavioural control through atmospheric effect promotes independence, team spirit and initiative in the workforce as a binding matter of course, directs the view of the individual beyond today - also to tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. However, it is also part of the task of corporate management to properly discipline corporate wrongdoers. Studies underline, however, that companies with clear values lived by managers and employees are more successful.

Living with uncertainty

Coping with uncertainty can only be successful if it is seen as a task for the entire company. It cannot be solved purely as an end in itself with values that are binding for all. If this psychological framework is not in place, the company's future will be rendered "meaningless" to the highest degree by the mental state of the company. The widespread sense of meaninglessness of personal effort and commitment, nurtured by a company's lack of principles in its actions, is unfortunately a virus that can do more damage to a company than many other things.

Coping with uncertainty requires operational pattern changes that go beyond the anchoring of value-oriented thought patterns in the minds of the workforce. Even the patterns that structured operational cooperation in the past are no longer useful for what needs to be mastered today. The traditional, clear and hierarchical organizational structure that has ensured success for decades, its assignments, boundaries and communication channels, make it difficult to act under conditions of uncertainty.

The first requirement in the specifications of operational organization today is to be able to react reliably with foresight as well as spontaneously depending on the situation. Both, however, presuppose the possibility of cooperation corresponding to this requirement, depending on the circumstances and necessity of the task and its execution. This can no longer be guaranteed with the usual rigid internal processes. They must be "liquefied". Towards a fluid organization with largely self-organized work groups and units that can be put together as needed.

The ability to combine expertise as required is becoming a key capability for securing operational performance - in an economy that is dynamically networked in fierce competition worldwide.

Discipline?

Process-oriented collaboration demands other levels of responsibility with permeable

Short-term success thinking makes you short-sighted.

The new structure is based on a clearer delineation of boundaries between the functional areas, the central staff units and, where applicable, subsidiaries.

Hierarchies will not disappear as a result. A defined hierarchy will continue to be an important structuring force in any organization. However, the depth of the hierarchy will change. If the entrepreneurial "inside" is to be able to respond reliably to the "outside", organisational definitions (with the hierarchical communication specifications and information paths made more open) must be optimised by means of customary operational role divisions in order to ensure operational responsiveness and effectiveness, for example the strict, communicative superordinate and subordinate dichotomies must be relaxed.

Finally, the role of routine, discipline and systematics remains an important one. Asian and Asian-managed companies often work in a more systematic and disciplined manner than European companies. In European companies, a misunderstood corporate culture values (apparent) creativity more highly than work discipline and systematics. Just as it is certain that the successful handling of uncertainty requires new patterns in company organisation and behaviour, it is also certain that without routine, disciplined and systematic work all these modifications are for nothing.