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Organization & Leadership - Cracking crisis - Quo Vadis?
The crisis summits are behind us. That is good news. The mountaineers did manage the difficult summit. After a short rest they go on with a cheerful heart, thinking they have overcome the catchiest part. Then the climb-down follows.
It is also the desire for the time after the crisis, which drafts people, especially in the western world to see the apparent end of the crisis. Nobody would like to have more uncertainty and more problems. If we look away, they will not be there - until we have to open the eyes again. You cannot assume away a crisis, nor look it away. You cannot argue it away and you cannot praise it away. There is only one way, you have to get over it. It is like the mountain with the way up to the summit and the big effort that follows. A good mountaineer knows this very well. He prepares himself and his followers accordingly.
Can a crisis be overcome without understanding it? That would be nice.
There is no troubleshooting without any cause study. It is the same with people and systems. Also the economic sight has got the same result. Nothing sorts itself out. Because one, who believes in this, is driving on a single-lane one-way road and has to notice that there is no option for turn around.
There is just the need for the right prescription, to see the crisis, to understand it and to come over it. There is no lack of prescriptions in the fund. Every helping hand is needed. People sick of life can become life savers, the fire bug can become a fire fighter and the soldier of fortune can become a man of honor. The charade has got a boom. Sometimes the old masquerade habits are careless changed in new ones. Caution is required, just with a historical look.
To look away seems not to be the solution. Maybe inspecting and processing it, helps. Which of the old prescriptions started the crises, which tools supported this system and who prescribed them? Is the way into the crisis the same as the way out of it? See above, one-way road.
In instable times people like to believe in the tried and true. The familiar generates trust. Better the known hell as the unknown paradise. But attention, crisis is no breakpoint, it is movement.
What does this mean for people in organizations? When organizations are on the move, there is a need of a leader cite them, to find the right way and to see it - with the look back for understanding and the look forward to take long views and to go first circumspectly.
What is to do on unknown ways, where the solutions of the past might not help? Leadership at its best is required now and managers who endeavour to this. They know that their organization will be a part of the success and that the key for the success is also in a most flexible and learning and thereby creative organization. To seed this creative power, to bring it to its full evolvement is an important prescription, not only in times of crisis, when the success is no longer taken for granted.
Quo Vadis - Leader or Pet Rock?