yet managers and leaders are required to use tools and methods designed for a predictable, linear ‘cause and effect’ environment.
Take the annual strategic planning, budgeting and performance management cycle..
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it consumes huge amounts of time, energy and angst,
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requiring predictive and futuring capabilities to detail a world that ‘everyone knows’ will not happen
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finally financial and other performance targets are set against the unknowable and unachievable
Over the year, many meetings and reports…
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why did the predictions not come true?
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how to account for the inevitably unexpected?
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how to explain why the predictions and the measures did not work…
and then it is done all over again.
The alternative?
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Be fixed and clear about those things that are fixed clear and able to be managed in the traditional way
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Build in flexibility to meet the unexpected, with maybe 20% of the money and other resources unallocated and actively managed on an ‘as needed’ basis
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Have a direction, not prescriptive targets, have a Charter rather than a detailed Plan
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Read everything you can on the Beyond Budgeting Movement.. and take from it some of the principles you can apply in your place.. without losing your job.
