No market is spared great volatility and uncertainty
- 15. December 2016
- Posted by: Ralf Juhre
- Category: Expert articles
The global financial and economic systems currently mark the end of the fifth Kondratieff cycle, very high volatilities and thus massive uncertainties. What are the drivers of future prosperity and growth? The basic innovation that will generate global economic growth in the upcoming sixth Kondratieff cycle has apparently not yet been found or is not publicly known. The Asian world’s emergence into prosperity brings with it massive demand, but is driven by the dynamics of “catching up”, but not by the dynamics of content renewal through a global leap in innovation.
The question of where global future economic growth based on innovation will come from remains unanswered. The current general uncertainty is so great because, on the one hand, the existing systems of the past are increasingly failing and, on the other, there are no suitable prospects for the future. Such a situation of transition from something familiar and formerly well-functioning old to something completely unknown new is experienced by many as a shock. Dealing with these transitions (not yet change!) processes require special skills and abilities. It comes to destabilizations. Previously proven solutions, e.g. strategy development and implementation, employee retention and development, organizational development, leadership, etc., no longer work as usual. Old-fashioned mechanisms and techniques have had their day, new things want to be born, but nobody knows when and where childbirth will take place and who or what will be the decisive triggers. Large change processes are always connected with changes in thinking and acting. Erwin Laszlo presented in his theory of macro-shift that in such situations whole paradigms of thinking, i.e. (mental) attitudes, experience profound change, through which the world has seen, judged and treated its problems.
In view of the shocks, there is increasing confusion and frustration in the day-to-day business of the company about the complexity that can no longer be controlled and controlled. What can be controlled and recorded in figures and data is only the present, future action (strategy) is increasingly beyond planning due to uncertainties and volatilities. Life is more and more determined by uncertainties and the associated (future) fears. Executives must be able to master the transition process. Gerhard Fatzer speaks in this context of the change in organizational development towards a transformational approach and away from the classic business process engineering of the 80s, which is still carried out on a massive scale today. In many companies, it becomes clear that the existing classical systems of corporate management fail and are in need of renewal. The economy – each individual company – is faced with the compulsion of self-renewal, with the challenge of having to reinvent itself. The existing orientation vacuum creates chaos, which favors and sometimes even promotes the germination of sick behavior patterns in the company when dealing with employees, customers, and suppliers. In the necessity of having to take care of the company, style blossoms arise in dealing with those involved in the system, which causes damage to everyone and thus has a destabilizing effect. Instead of sinking into the swamp of these helpless attempts at self-rescue, it makes sense to rethink and define the company as really healthy. The necessary transition process is enormously strenuous and ties up all forces. Moreover, it is not yet clear where the journey will take us. However, it is clear that under certain circumstances a renewal of the company’s understanding is first necessary as a basis in order to then take a firm foothold again. The aim of the change process of a company into a healthy company is, therefore, to reconstruct and redefine the identity of the company as a systemically holistic organization.