Scarcity Management
There are no organisations without scarcities: If there was enough land, we would not need a military, if everyone was healthy, we would not require hospitals, if everyone knew everything, schools and universities would be superfluous, if all goods were simply lying around, we would not need an economy. The list is endless.
Organisations organise themselves around scarcities. Scarcities create problems which can be processed effectively within organisations, because conditions of scarcity stimulate the need for decision-making. And this is precisely what organisations do, they decide! Every organisational guiding process suggested here is influenced by scarcities. It is these which make decisions necessary:
- scarcity of processing capacity requires economical learning
- scarcity of time in the present requires reasonable exceptions
- scarcity of possibilities for action requires limited risks
- scarcity of oversight capacity requires sufficient decoupling
- scarcity of possibilities to satisfy requires environmental frustration
- scarcity of solution resources requires quality focus
- scarcity of communication capacity requires trust
- scarcity of speaking time requires exclusions
- scarcity of competences requires selection of personnel