Automation, robotization and the advance of artificial intelligence determine the Future. But it will light overlooked: Salvation is not only to be found in technologies. Many Companys will miss the connection to the future simply because they persist in antiquated goal-finding processes.

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Manager put in the short term trap

When it comes to sustainability, the purely digital makes up maybe 20 percent. 80 percent is Transformation. In theory, managers know the necessities that result from this in relation to business models, organizational structures and management processes fairly well. But they are stuck in the short-term trap (Pero Mićić). You have targets to be met in a timely manner and you need to deliver quarterly results. This makes them blind to the future. And this jeopardizes market survival.

Goals define the direction in which managers run. But before long-term projects, the obvious goals are targeted. This is the "Low Hanging Fruits" phenomenon. If goals are also rewarded, there is no stopping them. You do everything you can to claim the goodies. So as long as short-term goal achievement is in the foreground, the future will not be tackled.

Rewards? Oh yes, dearest immediately!

“Would you rather get ten euros from me today or eleven euros tomorrow?” Before this Choice asked, take most People, as studies show, the ten euros today. Our brain doesn't like to miss good moments, that's how evolution developed it. We grab it, especially when there are rewards to be had – even if we know that others do Alternatives would make more sense in the long run.

This also applies one to one to management. When it comes to choosing between business survival and the achievement of short-term goals, immediate results are the preferred option. Even if you gamble away the economic future as a result: company values ​​are destroyed, morale is trampled on and customer welfare is sacrificed in order to get a precision landing on goals.

In addition, managers in their function as decision-makers not only have the company's interests in mind Head. Everyone is pursuing their own goals at the same time. It's about power, prestige, fame and honor, about political games, bonuses to be raked in - and about your own Career of course too. “With us, for the good of Company traded”, I often hear. This is nonsense. And devoid of all common sense. Self-interest beats corporate interests.

Tradierte Zielfindungsprozesse: predestined for lug and deceit

Business Reviews, budgeting processes and planning excesses that paralyze half the company for weeks are on the agenda in classic organizations every year. In the course of complex voting rounds, bets on the future travel up and down the silos. And everyone plays along. Anyone who doesn't observe or doesn't know the rules of the game of such theater is stupid.

At the bottom, the numbers are set as low as possible, because no matter how well-founded the elaborations are: "Above" they add another x percent to the target numbers for coffee and cake. At the same time, the budgeted budget is being cut significantly. This is followed by nerve-wracking arithmetic, dodging and haggling across the entire company in order to break everything down to the specified periods.

Managers do not follow the reality, but the plan

The only certainty in the business is probably that the plan and reality are already drifting on the second day of the new financial year. And what does a good manager do then? It follows not the reality, but the plan. He does not look for maximum feasibility, but for craps, in order to create the given numbers. Because he is measured and bonified at the planner filling. In the end, companies reward the list, lug, and fraud. And everyone knows.

In the small as in the large is pushed and pacts. Too much, too little or the wrong thing is sold. Achievements are stashed away, and with that customers is conspired to achieve the required precision landing. So that the budgets do not expire at the end of the year, they are still fast squandered, no matter what or how expensive. And every Friday is story time. The weekly report must be written.

Time-consuming and untimely: reaching the target bureaucracy

If the anticipated weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual results have not been achieved, a comprehensive deviations analysis and explanatory bureaucracy will start immediately. Scapegoats are being sought. Wrong reasons are found. But even while you are dealing with past data, the future is running out of it. The resources that devour the whole thing and the controlling people, who are busy with it, without any value added seem seem no matter.

Such old-fashioned target games are not only abstruse, they are also very risky. Because the entire Organization busy with himself, there is no time for the customers. In a more rigid Control built up System no innovations can emerge. After all, anyone who is rewarded for fulfilling specifications and meticulously following predetermined paths will never dare to try anything new. Moreover, nobody likes to work for reports that no one reads anyway.

In addition, in classic goal-finding processes, the future is viewed as a linear extension of the past. As long as the economy changed in a manageable way and on growth was polarized, you could get along with it quite well. But those times are long gone. Digitization has taken us from a linear to an exponential one change catapulted. With Objective-, measurement and control methods from the olden days are left behind.

Nobody is sure about disruptive surprises

"The Behavior of complex systems is unpredictable,” says organization expert Niels Pfläging. In addition, fast times cannot be planned a year in advance. Control processes cannot discipline the future. On the contrary: the error gap between one's own forecast and real development is getting bigger and bigger.

And before disruptive surprises is not a single one Industry for sure. We don't know if they're coming, when they're coming, and where they're attacking, but we know when they come, they come quickly. This requires if-then scenarios, dynamic tactics, flexible goals, open-ended processes and options for different futures on demand.

Today, the greatest successes are often right next to the plan. Rigid targets thus cause future damage, which one does not even see in the wrong zeal: the one of the missed opportunities. Who will push into these opportunities? This is the generation of the young entrepreneurs.

How companies can achieve the future

With digital core competence and a nose for innovations, the Boy Generation of new business, communication and purchasing models are advancing at a rapid pace. Old-school apparatchiks don't stand a chance against their brisk, cheeky, agile, flexible approach. Unless they switch from setting targets to future viability - and strategically involve the young talents.