Here is the presentation I gave at the IF forum Humans&Management on April, 11th, 2011, at the InterFace AG in Unterhaching
You can also find quite a few parts of my presentation in my presentation “Still Waiting To Be Read” (Vortrag). Here is an overview containing the ideas adapted from this presentation, with two added topics.
I started by asking:
So what is the motivation and the purpose of defining goals and developing strategies?
The answer came from the audience:
You set goals and develop strategies in order to be economically successful.
Well, my answer is also: success. However, I will refrain from adding the word economically, because I know that for most of the people, the term “success” is not restricted to the economical dimension.
After that, I made fun of a few goals (see link link to the “presentation waiting to be delivered”). And I also tried to show how hard (probably impossible) it is to lead if you use the method “set goals, develop strategies, implement operationally”.
Moreover, I pointed out that goals defined by material gain are bad goals. Most entrepreneurs and managers know this. Consequently, there is often a certain kind of helplessness when goals are to be determined and a strategy is to be developed.
But that is irrelevant. Because there is one strategic goal that makes sense and is of real entrepreneurial quality:
The culture of an enterprise!
Thus, the main strategic goal should be to create, maintain and promote an enterprise culture that complements the enterprise. It should have the following or similar characteristics:
- Not inimical (friendly towards humans);
- Giving meaning;
- Based on trust and values;
- Born of the wish not to make persons small and un-free;
- Striving for attributes, such as clear, transparent and fair;
- In accordance with the general welfare;
- Supportive of the development of the life of its employees and stake-holders in many dimensions and
- Equipped with the potential to develop with responsibility.
The entrepreneurial culture is your primary goal. It is important and a challenge. Goals like a stable business development, a healthy profit, growth, because it is fun, etc are secondary goals that should be self-evident.
In my opinion, goals such as “becoming the leader on the market” and the like are unhealthy goals.
And in my book, planning a certain number (we want to sell three million pieces) are operative goals. They have nothing to do with strategy.
Towards the end, I extended this longer part of my presentation by two ideas/questions that are important to me personally:
1) How can I make (almost) all of the people involved in the enterprise play the part of “p” (p for partner)?
and
2) People and teams can often be exploited to the limits. When is it permitted to make use of this fact?
Thinking in terms of “p” and foregoing unnecessary extra pressure on people are additional important goals for developing a future-oriented enterprise culture.
Firstly: “p” for partner
The game theory always tries to come up with games that show that “p” games mean more success for all parties concerned (like in the prisoners’ dilemma). Once in a while, philosophy tries to get pragmatic, taking up ideas from game theory. Game theory itself would certainly like moving inside the circles of operational research. As far as that is concerned, there is even a “scientific” reasoning in favour of p-games.
But how does it work?
Talking about payment, I would imagine that a “fair” share of the total success of the entire enterprise is probably useful. To be sure, this goal also has the general weaknesses of all material goal concepts. But at least it might counterbalance the s-game of some individuals a little.
There will probably always be hierarchies. I do not know if they are really necessary. Yet the hierarchies should be based on “responsibility”, rather than on “superiority”! And the positioning inside the hierarchy should not happen for arbitrarily for tactical/technological reasons. Instead, it should perhaps be automatically determined by the competence and social standing of a person.
If there are (have to be?) hierarchies, then they should be part of a cultural system of subsidiarity. And that is something you cannot combine with material rewards. What we are talking here is a reasonable delegation of responsibility (in the sense of handing over) and clear rules that reduce reign by hierarchies.
An important factor is the integration of as many people as possible (all of them), especially when “strategic” questions are discussed, as well as when you need support for implementing the culture. And you also need the readiness of all to play an active role in the daily decision-making process.
The basic requirements for p-games are collaboration at eye-level and agile cooperation with a common, reasonable goal.
An enterprise culture oriented towards “we all play p” is an important strategic sub-goal.
Secondly: the ability to work under pressure!
As I see it, people can be driven to the limit rather ruthlessly. And they are also often faithful in their social relationships way beyond what is reasonable. How long do some partners stick to an unhappy relationship or marriage? How long will a slave be faithful towards his master? The same is true for teams and bigger communities. How much injustice and suffering are necessary before a nation will protest against their dictator? Or what about soldiers who fight for an unjust cause for many years?
The reason for this is probably quite simple: humans are social creatures. They feel comfortable in the community they belong to. It seems to be the basic fear of humans to be ostracized. Even an embryo knows the fear of being thrown out or being aborted. It really seems that humans are actually prepared to endure a lot, just in order not to have to leave the environment they are used to.
Working in an enterprise is something very important for humans. It is not just the income. No: the social home they find at work has a high value. Consequently, they are prepared to endure a lot (all), just in order to be permitted to stay and not to loose the comfortable social feeling of being part of a team at work.
The German economy is said to have “more potential” than ever. At the same time, “every other employee in Germany has resigned from the job emotionally”. The thesis is supported by this item of news. I read it just recently.
An entrepreneur or manager wants to and has to achieve what he wanted to. Some of them do it the “tough” way. Knowing full well that his team will endure a lot, he consciously or subconsciously takes advantage of the fact in order to reach his goals.
If the goals get harder, the pressure on the team will increase. Managers who use the simple strategy of exploiting the endurance of a team or of people in order to be a success are often very successful (even in the long run). Their reputation gets better and better. Until one day they fail – but even that is not necessarily going to happen.
In my opinion, it should be an explicit goal of leaders to take as little advantage s possible of the endurance potential of their team. As a strategy, it should be only the “ultima ratio”, in case the enterprise is actually threatened. And there is no enterprise that does not suffer a crisis at one time or other, no matter if the reasons are external or internal.
That will be the time when you are happy that you have some reserve energy to fall back on – such as the ability of people in the enterprise to work under pressure. And when real solidarity is possible.
I know firms where it was possible to reduce the incomes of the employees by half during a time of crisis. They would never have gotten away with it if they had exploited the reserves of what people will endure before that time, just in order to reach their goals.
I know firms that did just that. They kept pushing their employees and teams to the limits of what they could do for years. When the time of essential crisis came, these employees turned stubborn. They showed not the slightest inclination towards compromising and only waited for and insisted on their financial settlements (as a sort of compensation).
So you can see: not exploiting the social dependency and goodwill of people and teams might also be an important strategic sub-goal if you want to generate an entrepreneurial culture.
Well, it seems like we found two “good” goals, after all.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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