Archiv der Kategorie: Management

Here you find topics like planning, organization and leadership.

(Fr)agile

Companies that already exist and grew for a long time mastered many challenges – changed market requirements, new technologies, and various cooperation styles. Over time these companies developed a custom-made armor of rules and stipulations of organizational structures and procedures, which should cover, if possible, every eventuality. As the armament of a knight meant an additional weight of 30 kg, the enterprises also carry around enormous ballast of guidelines. Even if this armor is adapted to the proportions of its user, it limits the mobility and thus creates certain fragility. How to get rid off the “Fr”?

An armament consists of different metal plates that were forged for certain parts of the body of a distinct person – the helmet, the piece of chest, the arm things, the thigh cover, the elbow, the knee piece, the leg tube and much more. Also the enterprise develops internally regulations for its different areas. In order to become agile it is crucial, to consider the following aspects.

  • Vision
    The picture of an ideal, in the future agile state of the enterprise forms the basis for the renouncement of over years developed, detailed determinations. The vision is built upon the ideal employee conception, the other resources and the customer-oriented cooperation. The elements that obstruct this vision have to be dissolved.
  • Convictions
    All involved people developed by and by mindsets that disturb the agilization. The employees have to let the expectation go that they have to be motivated, trained and assigned from the outside. The managers must let go that they directly steer, control, and sanction the employees. The magic word of the future is self-organization.
  • Intrinsic motivation
    In order to keep the momentum in an enterprise, appropriate extrinsic rewards and incentives were developed – the payment, the bonus, the career, and the training. In self-organization other incentives that drive the employee from the inside become important – the satisfaction to accomplish an activity, to have a skill, being able to satisfy one’s curiosity or to be able to reach a personal purpose with the activity.
  • Trust
    The company owners have to carry out the greatest deal of trust. They can’t avoid to give up the direct influence and to believe that the internal society, the employees, steer the economic fate in such a way that the enterprise remains economically viable and lucrative. The confidence that the intrinsic motivation guarantees the necessary employee interaction and that way productive results appear spontaneously is the pre-requisite for the fact that the employees after all get the chance to prove themselves.
  • Organizational openness
    To open the existing chain mail, in order to let evolve the possibility for self-organized networking and team building, requires great courage. The corporate DNA is burned into the consciousness of the employees in such a way that it requires a large effort to get away from the cherished sense of security. One company and two approaches require neutral zones, where the employees can try themselves out, without having to follow the established, old way.
  • Governance
    The introduction of a fundamental set of rules that describes briefly and easy to understand the new principles, the ways of alignment, the common view and clear tasks, authority and responsibility, is an important pre-requisite. It is conceivable to introduce special areas, as China did with its special economic zones (e.g. Shenzhen, Hainan, and Hong Kong). In this area completely new approaches can be tested – Holacracy, pods, platforms.
  • Platform
    Self-organized units are focused on their topic. Repeating activities and generally needed services disturb thereby. For this reason, it is smart to liberate the teams from certain basic tasks. The bundling of these items in a platform increases the effectiveness of the units. In the platform you can find standardized procedures and tools as a service – IT, infrastructure, logistics, etc.

In the course (Fr)agility, the employees consist not only of the executing people, but also the steering ones, the so-called management. The upcoming loss of power that results from the self-organization is the largest challenge, since guidance results in the future out of context and no more from the classical career. The person will lead, who inspires and engages people at most and no more the best adapted careerist.

Bottom line: The (Fr)agility of companies is determined by the armament that limits the mobility. This includes the structures and procedures, the established set of rules that tries to regulate every detail. In order to create the transformation to an agile organization, it needs a vision, common convictions, an intrinsic motivation, trust, an organizational openness, governance and a common platform that is available for the agile units. The agility is threatened by those, who loose the most – the leaders. For this reason, they need perspectives that show them opportunities for survival.

The flipside of the way of the slightest resistance

Water and sand, bees and ants as well as large herds and crowds, all follow a common principle. Frozen water sticks to it and aims for the valley. Pheromones show it to ants. Herds of animals adapt to each other, in order to find it. Even in the crush of a crowd of people, they all find it and create thereby order – the path of least resistance.

For some people it is the best way, since they connect little effort with maximum impact -although some aspects are not always desirable.

  • The way that everybody goes
    As soon as this path appears, all and everything follows this way. Regardless of whether it is snow or sand, the discovered attractor, i.e. the place, where all energies go, attracts you magically. In competition that is not really the path that should be aimed for, since you will be where everybody is and the fewest differentiators are found. The answer to the question about your originality, the Unique Selling proposition (USP), lets you stand out of the other crowd and makes the intended laurels on a long-term basis possible. As soon as you get lost on the path of least resistance, the search should start for a different approach. Even though this leads to larger efforts, it yields more in the end. Otherwise nothing else remains than resting in mediocrity.
  • The way that the problems go
    Mountain climbers know that the areas of the least resistance should be avoided, since there is the largest risk to be caught by an avalanche. The business problems also find this direct way, in order to spread at no expense. This begins with computer viruses that spread within networks from one computer to the next. It goes to the particularly harmful fight for market share that is fought through prices. Surprisingly the understanding that the cheaper offers are reduced, not necessarily equal services is missing to the customers. All pounce on this simple way of competition, without considering that the own viability is at risk. Their offers suffer one day under the bad quality and destroy the customer confidence. Certifications are worth nothing, since the customers already turned away.
  • The way that passes real opportunities
    The way of the slightest resistance is not necessarily the best, since outside can be found significantly more. In business the genuine opportunities are also outside of the well-trodden tracks. In the context of former conditions only a few people thought about the fact that a World Wide Web creates new possibilities. Meanwhile everybody understands. And already niche markets are emerging that promote again more physical community – meeting places, where one enjoys its coffee with a group of people; teams that co-ordinate their tasks personally in daily stand ups; meetings, where music is made again by hand. Since the daily routine leads to more and more regulations and standards, the responsible people forget to dare a view beyond the edge of the plate. Thus they miss lucrative opportunities.
  • The way that often takes detours
    With a river that flows in its natural bed, the way of the slightest resistance appears. It meanders itself in far and close, again and again changing loops. This shows that the nature does not follow the most direct or shortest way. In business life intuitive operational sequences are also not looking for the fastest way. On contrary, they lead often to much branched out and difficult-to-understand processes that cannot be steered out of one hand. Distributed, self-organized leadership is essentially more effective, as long as it concerns naturally grown sequences. Procedures that must be implemented in IT-programs, limit this free run of the things. The standardization is thereby a compromise that has to reconcile all interests and to overcome resistances.

Each of us will also take the way of the slightest resistance again and again. Why should you make it difficult for yourself? We are afraid of uncertainty and rarely change something that worked well so far. This is valid also for those, who always take the way of permanent change and who will therefore never come to peace.

Bottom line: The way of the slightest resistance is despite its momentum and its apparent coziness the least way to strive for. Here you find most people. Here the problems are happening. Here you have the smallest chances to set off from the pack. Here you accept detours. And nevertheless many let themselves drift and complain afterwards that they didn’t get more out of it. As soon as you feel the fact that you are on this path, a side step or a spontaneous direction change or just trying out something completely different is recommended. The flipside of the way of the slightest resistance is the unnoticed corset that prevents long-term viability.