The Unexpected
Organisations with a traditional layout don’t like surprises. Organisations constructed in the usual business management way would like it best if everything ran as planned and expected. However, often the future is more different to the present than one thinks. “Managing the Unexpected” (Karl E. Weick) becomes a further additional discipline, which organisations and their managers must master in dynamic and hypercomplex environments.
The guiding process handling the future reckons with the unexpected future by deciding where the future is not to be dealt with by means of risk (=strategy, planning, control, measures, activities, influence etc.), but with danger competences.
Those who expect the unexpected reckons
• with “Black Swans” (N. Taleb), i.e. with relevant exceptions,
• with bad news, as this is frequently hidden
• with hierarchical disinformation, because the hierarchy is often particularly badly and tactically informed
• with trivialities, which could gain great significance,
• with their own misjudgements,
• with the necessity to be forced to bury nice plans and
• with the pain of loss.