External complexity generates internal dynamics
Contents
External complexity generates internal dynamics
This way of thinking proves successful at best in organisations operating in existing markets and within stable environments. Their organisational emergence (added value) is based on the possibilities of coercion and captivity rather than on process or product related innovation. In the face of increasing complexity outside and inside organisations, this figure is proving less and less actionable and effective and does not carry much further. More complex processes as an organisation’s internal response to a structurally linked complex world are now no longer just complicated. They are linked back as so‐called ›adaptive problems‹ (cf. Dierke & Houben, 2013, overview p. 101), they are non‐linear. And: once decided and implemented, they occasionally show unexpected, sometimes frightening results, the results of which are no longer recoverable. The so‐called agile concepts that are currently in vogue, as conceptual answers to this, also increase the inner complexity. Together with what is called the continuous digitalisation of processes, they drive the speed of internal change as mutually reinforcing accelerators. And at the same time, they ensure the chronic liquefaction of organisational structures.
In addition, processes that used to support the (linear) core business are now proving to be increasingly binding multiple restrictions of a value creation environment: Skills shortages, demographics, specific requirements of subsequent generations (X, Y, Z…), customer‐ and market‐oriented product development, disruptive threats, increasingly pressing reputational issues, CSR, supply chain monitoring, compliance and stakeholder expectations, gender issues, diversity, identity politics, employer branding; shareholder exhortations – see among others Blackrock. In this way, the dynamics of business models, the change of business processes is driven. This is followed by a change in the internal allocation of resources and their priorities. Last but not least, due to these influences, there is a sometimes massively changed composition of departments and their staffing at the top management level. In view of external expectations, this is increasingly no longer based solely on mono‐dimensionally diverse professional characteristics. They will be decided according to further multiple diversity criteria. In this way, organisations signal to their relevant environment: »we have understood!«
This poses new, sometimes very complex challenges to the inner attitude and the design of cooperation at the top team level.
