Necessary External References
For most organisations there are references in the external environment which cannot be ignored. Courts cannot ignore the new laws of the legislative authority, corporations cannot (really) ignore the rules of taxation, ISO certification or product regulations such as the emission limits. Apart from that they can hardly ignore the new product of the competitor and authorities cannot simply place officials on the door step.
The guiding process decision orientation has necessary limitations externally which are indispensable for ‘survival’. The necessary scope is then created internally, i.e. in the way in which the external conditions are implemented. In the skilled handling of external necessities organisations develop a very impressive creativity to make rigid norms flexible, to fulfil formalities, to circumvent, to camouflage and to deceive, to follow their own interests in the small print, to intelligently interpret the regulations, to pretend that they knew nothing about anything, to formally comply with everything and to informally operate very loosely. Therefore, internal orientation mixes with external orientation and the guiding process can also find the proof here, that one side of the coin can only ever be had with the other side, and that decisions always have a price.