- What keeps executives up at night?
"True leaders don't need charisma," Fredmund Malik once said. Scandals like those surrounding Sam Bankman-Fried or Elon Musk would hardly have surprised the management consultant. The same applies to the current system crisis. "What was once reliable suddenly falls apart," writes the bestselling author, who previously taught at the University of St. Gallen, in his new book. But how does one prepare for an uncertain future?
Malik has been warning about a major upheaval, which he calls the "Great Transformation," for over a decade. This topic has also repeatedly appeared in his newsletter, which has been published without interruption since 1993 (initially monthly, later weekly). The author of the standard work "Leadership, Performance, Life" has now compiled a selection of previously unpublished texts from 2019 in the book "What Keeps You Up at Night? First Aid for Leaders."
The title question was posed by Malik (born in 1944) to a series of top executives. They named seven key insights for a successful future:
#1 The country needs new managers
"The current challenges cannot be mastered with conventional means," warns Malik. The emphasis is on "conventional." The executives he interviewed understood that a new kind of management is needed for the specific challenges of our time, with its own practices, methods, and tools.
#2 "What needs to be done is clear. But how?"
Lack of insight is not the problem. However, implementation often falls short, writes Malik, citing digitization as an example. The reason for this disappointment, in his view, is that the previous processes have largely remained unchanged. "So, although processes have been digitized, they are still the old ones. Truly new solutions also require a radically new approach to implementation."
#3 Change hinders change
Malik joins the widespread criticism of change managers. The current approach to change management is not strong enough for the massive upheavals. "Expectations are created that cannot be met. People are disappointed and demotivated," warns the author. His advice: "Leave people as they are." A good example, in his opinion, is the triumph of the smartphone. It seamlessly integrated into users' habits, thus bringing about a fundamental change without disruption: "As a result, people then developed new communication habits."
#4 Three strategies for the future
In Malik's view, a single grand strategy for transformation is not enough. He advocates for a three-pronged transformation:
- Strategy 1 for the still usable processes of the "Old World"
- Strategy 2 for building the potential for the "New World"
- Strategy 3 as transformation management for the transition
#5 Digitization leads to complexity
Digitization has been a topic since the 1970s. "Frequent use of the word ‚digitization‘ in a company doesn't achieve much," criticizes Malik. What's important is understanding what's behind it: networking. This makes things much more complex. "The more extensive the networking, the more complex the system becomes," the management expert points out. Therefore, anyone hoping that digitization will make everything simpler will be unpleasantly surprised by the (often global) dynamics of digital processes.
#6 Complex is not complicated
"Complex" is not the same for Malik as "complicated". "Complexity should be reduced", he demands, looking at bureaucracy. For the expert, however, complexity is the "goldmine" of the future. "Complexity is the source of intelligence, creativity, and innovation", he emphasizes.
#7 Culture as the Scapegoat
"Culture-stress" is what Malik writes about in his new book. But he believes it's largely self-made. Because everything that doesn't run well in businesses is often blamed on missing or wrong corporate culture. But according to Malik, the reasons why something doesn't work are often quite different. "Insufficient strategies, unsuitable structures, wrong personnel decisions, inadequate management knowledge, and dysfunctional communication", he counts. All of this also affects culture negatively: "But the causes are usually elsewhere."
In the context of preparing for an uncertain future, Malik suggests that traditional management methods are insufficient for the challenges of our time and advocates for a new kind of management with its own practices, methods, and tools. The title of Malik's book "What Keeps You Up at Night? First Aid for Leaders" also contains the word 'digital', highlighting the importance of digitization in the new approach to leadership.
