Possible Internal References
“The Best or Nothing!” is the revived motto of Daimler AG. This is an example of an internal reference, by which an organisation can orientate itself in the guiding process decision orientation. Thus, a focus is created on the factual level, in this case, right across the corporation. In the same way, department goals, competence development goals or product roadmaps are internal, organisational reference points, which cannot be easily ignored and which, at the same time, ensure stability. In addition, these are not immediately questioned in their entirety as soon as the first difficulty arises, or when there has to be a necessary exception (“This will have to be second-best!”). So, in order to make the decision about how to objectively orientate oneself internally, one also needs premises, ground rules and regulations. In this way individual decisions are simplified.
Organisations can produce a lack or an excess of such references, which give the individual decisions of the employees a consistent direction. Internal references can be planned for and defined. Therefore, they are also a favoured focus for managers and have made a career as a concept under the title ‘Management by Objectives’. The difficulty in this is that the employees are then also bound to the internal reference in their decisions, even when external references have already indicated for a long time that the goals, the regulations, the product ideas etc. must be adjusted or abandoned. Therefore, the organisation becomes inflexible and reacts to itself and not to the external environment.