Increasingly unpredictable markets are a feature of our times and this is undermining many business management models. As Malcom Gladwell wrote, “If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it’s the box that needs fixing.”
It is from this observation that the book Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World by Brian J. Robertson, published by Guerini Next, read with great interest, begins. The theme is to make our companies more reactive in an ever more dynamic world, through a drastic revision of the traditional organizational model based on hierarchy. It is a self-management practice that redistributes decision-making authority to those who have the information, the skills and the initiative. Many US companies are adopting it.
Today the prevailing vision believes in the creation of advanced, wise and conscious leaders as the condition for improving businesses. The prevailing theory is that if an organization wants to be dynamic and reactive, it is individuals who must have the power to address problems “locally”, within their working environment, without having to wait for the consent of those who are in the upper levels. It’s a method that doesn’t rely on the ability of someone to always be a great leader, but, rather, on the ability of everyone to sometimes be a good leader. It might seem that such a system is without rules, but this practice uses precise methodologies as well as new terminology. I refer you to the book so that you may read about these aspects that are addressed in a very detailed way.
A very beautiful and current example is the metaphor of the car that drives itself: imagine getting into your car in the morning and suddenly you no longer see the steering wheel in front of you; there is no gearshift at your side and no brake or gas pedal at your feet. Instead, you have a set of dials, buttons and levers in front of you that you have no idea how to operate. Even stranger, the passenger side has the same set of controls. All this can be confusing; suddenly you do not need your driving skills anymore. Yet, as you hesitantly ease out of the driveway you get the impression that, despite the strange new controls, the car could now hold capabilities that the old version never had.
From a commercial point of view, I find that the term hypercompetition describes this situation of unpredictable markets very well. I talk about this and other related topics my book Exporting in 7 Steps published a few months ago by the same publishing house. See my post, MY NEW BOOK “EXPORTING IN 7 STEPS” IS OUT.