Situation-oriented
Situation-oriented handling specifies that one can deviate from general rules. Organisations need the possibility to tolerate the contravening of rules. Each case is different, otherwise one could, to a certain extent, calculate what is to be done. Organisations constantly utilise the possibility of accepting exceptions. Here it is conspicuous that this acceptance can be explicit (“Then we will make an exception for this customer!”). But often these exceptions are simply made, without any communication about them taking place. Action takes place tacitly and appropriately without comment and in this way the validity of the rule is silently acknowledged. Nevertheless, in the need for intelligent usage of rules there also lies a theoretical reason for secrecy in organisations. It is just as important that organisational rules or instructions give the hierarchy sufficient scope for interpretation, as otherwise the disregarding of rules will immediately be interpreted as contempt for the hierarchy. Smart managers know this. Organisations vary a lot in the way and the extent to which rules can be ignored in favour of situation-oriented actions.
Even the circumstances under which an injury is punished or almost emphasized (“You’re a hero!”), shows how organisations strongly differ from each other. Thus, the guiding process “Handling the present” is equally significant for management as well as for consultants