MANAGING BY TRACTION (MbT) REINVENTING MANAGEMENT IN THE CYBER-AGE

ABSTRACT

“We are at a critical turning point in human history! We are all prisoners of our paradigms. And as managers, we are captives of a paradigm that places the pursuit of efficiency ahead of every other goal.”¹

In a world of ambiguity and increasing instability, we urgently need to review and reinvent management, and that includes ways of doing business. We need to exercise new leadership competencies and review management paradigms, relevant processes, tools and instruments that are still valid in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA)² environment and in our highly technological and global world. We argue that there is a great need to adopt bold new ideas and concepts and not merely change existing terminologies. The time has come for a clarion call for a new management framework. Our framework of the new management approach is through the lens of strategic planning, since it plays a key role in management success. We argue that the strategic planning process should be reinvented to become a dynamic-direction operation involving ‘planning by interactive action processes’. Employing such a dynamic focus would also mean that performance reviews will embed concepts such as value creation. In this way, the direction becomes an active part of action, where action can continually reshape the direction. It is highly important to know which direction to choose, why it has been chosen and how to get there.

Often, the selected direction is more of a guiding star than a road map to follow. This also helps to define a dynamic assignment of resources and means, which is a prerequisite to following the selected direction. Actions would include delivering ongoing constructive feedback about the feasibility of the selected direction. In this way, the selected direction defines the desired future, and action is the actual creation of it. Direction is always future-oriented and action is focused on current activities and results.

What we describe in this article is the essence of what we label ‘Management by Traction’ (hereafter referred to as MbT). MbT is a framework that is a powerful enabler for management in the cyber-age. It is based on a short and simple feedback loop.

INTRODUCTION

“Imagination is the source of new, unexpected and often better solutions, fuelling bold visions.”

All human actions have an implicit or explicit purpose. But only a meaningful purpose may be attractive and sustainable, and thus provide traction to others.

The strategic planning process should be reinvented to become a dynamic-direction operation involving ‘planning by interactive action processes’.

The ever-changing complexity in which we live and operate in both our personal and business lives can be captured by the future design framework (i.e., preceding the setting of a direction). Once a direction is defined, we can move directly to an action or action(s) which are continuously assessed to verify alignment with the direction, while also being sensitive to the need to change direction if corrections are required. Action and direction are not new, yet they have concurrent impact on the future direction. What is new is the fact that our turbulent environment and key players are constantly changing, generating a feedback loop that is both constructive and dynamic. Such a feedback loop is needed now more than ever. In business strategy terms, one can say that feedback is being driven by a pull strategy far more than by a push strategy (see: https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-push-and-pull-strategy.html).

This pull strategy is applicable to all core management processes, including strategy development, planning and implementation. The pull