Of course you must also be pragmatic. You may conclude that the effects of turbulence can be eradicated sufficiently to perform surgery almost normally if you can construct a gyroscopically controlled operating room, but that is not a practical proposition.
So, you must accept that the best available action may be sub-optimal, but if you do nothing the patient will die and hence your less than perfect option increases the chance of the patient’s survival especially if you can envisage some of the possible setbacks that you may encounter during the procedure and prepare compensatory action.
In other words you must be creative and evaluate more options than would normally be the case if you were confronted by the same problem in less turbulent times.
Change versus control
Management is about imposing and maintaining control through the practice of compartmentalisation and compliance with a set of laws and rules. But this requires a comparatively slow pace of change that facilitates the rational and systematic evaluation of recent trends and where their continuation might lead. So the kind of rapid, unpredictable change that characterises turbulent times is anathema.
Managers embrace progress as an objective but only where it can be accomplished through incremental change. They tend to be comparatively risk averse, departmentally myopic and protective, and place a premium on reactionary rational adaptation.
The consequence of this mindset and conduct is that, through their advocacy or rejection of projects, managers tend to guide organisations away from situations where fundamental change is necessary. Radical change is turbulent and risky and is the antithesis of their preferred methodology and comfort position.
Most managers can, to some extent, predict and deal with the regular and moderate variations in the general operating climate, but few are trained adequately to deal with conditions analogous to earthquakes and hurricanes.
Their forecasts of the near future are usually based on an extrapolation of recent trends. Statistically this is a valid procedure as, for most of the time, the probability is high that the next period will be a function of preceding periods. It is also difficult to detect the green shoots of growing turbulence amongst the verdant undergrowth of a fertile market economy.
An uncertain future and concerns about the lack of control can cause managers to be biased towards the avoidance or denial of the need for fundamental or radical change. In fact the nature of managerial training, perspective and the toolkit combine to render some managers blind to the emerging signals of significant or discontinuous change.
It is sometimes also suggested that the actions of managers lead inevitably to organisational decline and are the cause of the kind of transitional events they prefer to avoid. Their desire for control imposes inflexibility on an organisation and inhibits its capacity to deform and adapt naturally or easily in response to turbulent changes in its operating environment.
Only when the need for change is imposed by the emergence of external events such as those encountered during 2008 do managers have no option but to confront turbulence and change.
Leaving aside the question of whether or not conventional managerial conduct can be a principal cause of the need for reform, it is apparent that organisational difficulties can be exacerbated by a manager’s over-reliance on the techniques that served him or her well in stable times. The response to the unusual problems that arise from an organisation’s turbulent incompatibility with its operating environment must not be limited to or even be led by the more strenuous application of these conventional processes.
The conventional processes are the scientific management tools which managers have become accustomed to using to ply their trade. These were designed to function in an age when our economic system was less interconnected and somewhat slower paced. It is not surprising, therefore, that they do not seem to work as well today as they have in the past.
The conventional practice reaches its effective limit in turbulent times when the pace of change is more rapid than the conventional toolkit can control.
It is, in part, this analysis which leads to the conclusion that managers should confine the time of their greatest influence to periods of relative stability. These are punctuated by turbulent periods of significant change (transitional events) and it is during these turbulent periods when managers are seemingly less effective and people begin to distinguish between managers and leaders and look for the latter.
Doing the right thing or doing things right?
Managers tend to regard ‘doing things right’ as implementing those procedures and techniques that they have been taught or learned through experience.
But established methodologies are not necessarily equally effective in all situations. Management is not like physics in which certain immutable and universally applicable laws establish a reliable set of founding principles.
So it does not follow that the emergence of turmoil results from managers being lax in their diligent application of techniques. Nor does it follow that turbulence can be ameliorated or its consequences avoided by adopting a more conscientious application of the established techniques of management science. The ‘right thing’ to do is not the same as ‘doing things right’.
Doing the right thing means being aware of the abnormality of the situation, the degree to which conventional tools are effective and the extent to which your experience is appropriate.
In turbulent times you cannot restore stability by the avoidance of action, nor do you want to be pressurised into acting from panic.
Avoiding panic moves
Individuals are programmed to believe that inaction in the face of clear and present danger is not the most appropriate conduct.
If a car is driving towards you then to hold your ground seems to be a stupid decision likely to result in you being injured. But jumping off a high bridge in panic to avoid the car is equally irrational.
The virtuous act of facing down the threat has absolutely no effect, nor does pretending that it is irrelevant. Turbulent times are insensitive to the reputation, stature or posturing of the manager.
Managers should not deny or ignore the emergence of turbulent times or minimise the risks to their organisation but nor should they believe that, having concluded that a dangerous storm is developing, they must be seen to be doing something even though it is a poorly considered action.
Doing something because you must oppose the onslaught and this is the only action you can envisage that may have any effect is insufficient.
Ill-considered action may result in irreparable damage in the same way that sailing a boat badly in a storm can be disastrous. Running with the sea is, in some conditions, just as destabilising as running against it. If going sideways is just as bad or not an option what action do you as the manager/helmsman take?
Most experienced sailors will say that if you are in turbulent water that is unfamiliar to you, then you must learn to read the sea and try to position the boat differently in anticipation of the next wave. All waves are not the same and each must be dealt with on its merits. Adaptability is the necessary attribute. Take a series of small decisions until you can make a strategic move with confidence.
Avoiding inaction
Inaction sometimes seems to be the best option simply because all the other possibilities are replete with risks that you as a manager do not seem able to control.
To continue the boating analogy; the storm is upon you, your GPS system doesn’t work, you have no charts, you’re unfamiliar with the conditions