We live in a fast-paced world: Technologies evolve in a rocket speed, unpredictable situations like wars or the pandemic arise and turn our everyday life upside down, and global threads like the climate change force us to change our way of life radically. This also has impact on our economy: Companies must be able to find solutions off the cuff. Employees, in particular the (leadership) managers, need to say goodbye to deadlocked attitudes.
Germany has clever brains, nerds, pioneers, and work mates who have good ideas to improve their work lives and experiences. So far, every crisis did trigger inventions and developments to cope with the issues, maybe even turn them into technical progress. In every crisis therefore is a significant portion of chances.
Leadership and error culture outbreak innovation
Unfortunately have an error culture over here that likes to project successes onto upstairs, but mistakes and failures downstairs to a scape goat, who is stigmatized for the future. In America people say: „Try out, fail, learn, stand up, and try again!”. Also, the risk culture there is rather focused on entrepreneur spirit: Without risk no chance.
Many people in the upper levels over here still believe only they know the right heading for the company. They fear at once, with innovation mistakes might appear that have bad impact on the company and thus with their own reputation. That’s why they defend existing structures, hierarchies, directives, and tried and true procedures like their own principalities, and our belief in authority, trained in more than 500 years of proliferation of small states, even supports them. But they alienate talents that way and keep their own company from superb ideas and improvements.
Leadership and error culture outbreak projects (and project recovery)
That also applies to how to deal with corporate projects. Who frequently experiences that these always take longer and cost more than planned should allow and promote changes in project culture and project management. In case of emergency that is an efficient, professional revision and recovery of a distressed project, e.g., with an external consultant who is experienced in such matters, instead of continuing much more expensively with the insufficient internal means, or even with a write-off.
This perpetuates in further benefitting from the findings and insights with the organization’s solution-oriented and preventive restructuring and improvement to prevent such crisis from even arising in the future. And finally, the momentum gives tail wind to address and successfully execute important projects for the company’s prosperity in the future.
Change leadership and error culture solution-oriented
Who wants to get more flexibility and resilience (“Agility”) for his firm, needs to attract, hire, and promote people with an unrestrained, agile mindset. They stand for a flexible thinking which works solution-oriented in opposition to the numb mindset operating plan-focused. That means the ways to solutions are flexibly adapted to the objectives, and especially even when a goal cannot necessarily be reached on well-known ways.
To delegate responsibility and to foster pioneer spirit in the company doesn’t mean at all for a leader to give up his leadership. Authority remains when not insisting stubbornly in hierarchies and rules – just not given by position but earned by circumspection and success.
So, what are you waiting for? Act, don’t wait no more! Doing is like wanting, just more radical…