The guiding process, dealing with the present, takes place on two platforms: on the formal, and on the informal platform of the organisation. In an organisation, that which is written down and defined is a formal rule (in sport the rules of the game). Informal rules are those that have ‘permanent’ relevance, influence and effectiveness …
Organisations need anarchy, otherwise they would suffocate with rules. Here, anarchy means that it would be an overburdening of hierarchy to permit every single situation-appropriate treatment of a problem as an exception to a rule. Organisations need the informal, well-practiced competence of employees to circumvent instructions, processes, communication paths, decision-making programmes and decision makers. This …
The instrument which can best clarify whether a rule should be used or if the situation should be treated as an exception, is the human. This competence about whether to apply rules or not does not fall from the sky. There are descriptors for these abilities in people: wisdom, discrimination, sense of proportion, discretion, decisiveness. …
Interestingly, in organisations, little reflection takes place about what should not be regulated, because it cannot be regulated: the unregulatable! Which processes should be left unregulated can be recognised by the fact that decision-makers in these areas cannot call upon instructions, logic or the ‘if – then’ approach. The reasoning: “I/we have decided this way …
If it is correct that organisations must decide (in order to survive) whether they handle a matter in a rule- conformant way or situation-specifically, then the common definition of error as a ‘rule violation’ cannot be maintained. Nor can it be that when you adhere to a recognised rule, that this is interpreted as a …
A relatively stable factor in management fashions in the last thirty years is the management by means of objectives, in contrast to leading by instructions. Objectives and target achievement discussions are an essential part of management work in middle-sized and large organisations. Meta-theoretically, this concept is also an unfolding paradox. Why? Under the requirement to …
How is (greater) damage, i.e. the negative consequences of past decisions, processed in organisations? Organisations cannot, like people, get annoyed or state that this could have been foreseen. Instead, two variations are available to them. They search for a scapegoat, a well-tested procedure which has been in operation for centuries. This could be a victim …
In dynamic environments, the future will differ from the past. It will surprise and with it, it will deliver danger which must be processed with danger competence in organisations. The key to this is, on the one hand, composure, robustness, flexibility and aggressiveness, on the other, mindfulness about innovations, surprises and the unfamiliar. How can …
Risk competences by members of an organisation are always in demand when decisions have unfavourable and negatively perceived consequences. These decisions are attributed to decision-makers and they must be able to cope with these unforeseen outcomes. It is important not to give in to the temptation of evaluation, and in retrospect to find wrong, which …
A forecast is an expectation that a particular future will become the present. However, this expectation of the future alters the present: I will fetch the map and plan how to reach my goal via country roads. The actions in the present try to alter the expected future! As many have this expectation, however, and …