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August
Simple! Yet nimble.
In the last edition in August, I stressed nimbleness as being a great strength for companies and organisations that are confronted with difficult and rapidly-changing economic conditions.
Since then, I’ve repeatedly been asked how this ties in with the strategies of those same companies and organisations. Does strategy then represent one of a company’s least consistent characteristics? Successful organisations stick firmly to a set strategy, and thereby deal with all aspects of corporate management as simply as possible? At a conference, I myself was confronted with the question whether nimbleness in fact damages sustainable firms or other fundamental values, in which the economic fabric plays its part.
Isn’t there some contradiction here, then?
Not at all. An organisation’s standards and values are certainly to be found operating at a higher level than nimbleness. Processes can only be nimble and lean to the extent that they are not in conflict with a company’s essential corporate values, such as sustainability, ecological awareness, a sense of moral duty. And yes: a clear choice of strategy, which can then be easily implemented and adjusted only occasionally in the light of fundamental changes in market conditions, is an essential factor for success.
Consequently, the nimbleness of processes means making maximum use of the freedom of manœuvre available within the framework of standards, values and strategic choices that the organisation has itself laid down.
Organisations that seek to stay true to this framework, but also to optimise the customer’s experience within that framework, develop sufficient ability to re-engineer themselves, construct their organisation along modular lines and build up sufficient managerial momentum, will certainly not see this as any kind of paradox, but rather as a great strength.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll draw inspiration in this issue from the experiences of a number of organisations that have already put a nimble approach to processes into practice!
AUGUST is a 6-monthly magazine in Dutch that, detached from hypes, witticisms and dogmas seeks for techniques, insights and concepts that can make an organisation really operational in dynamic, economic and social context.
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I wish you lots of reading and listening pleasure.
Prof. dr. ir. Hendrik Vanmaele
CEO MÖBIUS