Managing Disturbances

Management is a contingency activity; managers act when routines breakdown, when unexpected snags appear. As managers advance to senior positions, they deal increasingly with predicaments, not problems. Successful global leadership requires key traits - - external focus, clear thinking, imagination, inclusiveness, and expertise. The era of global risks and crises will require additional skill sets from all leaders that place a premium on handling disturbances - - reacting to changes forced on a project, program, or organizational unit.

Companies such as GE are starting to understand the contingency component of leadership and management in the context of our rapidly shifting global environment. In the 1980s, the prized management skills and attributes at GE were cost-cutting, efficiency, and deal making. What skill set that ultimately ends up being prized by organizations at any particular point in time is a relentless and constant evolution. Management and leadership training at GE has increasingly focused on managing in volatility and a world of potential changes and disturbances - - requiring interpretative thinking because of out global interconnected systems of paradoxical courses and consequences.

Disturbances occur naturally in every organization - - with certainty or as random events. The grounding of air travel in Europe last week due to ash from an Icelandic volcano is a perfect example. Cancellations by the major airlines and overbooking’s in rail transportation - - disturbances in many different directions for all. The effective organization and leaders may be not only those that avoid many disturbances, but also the ones whose managers deal effectively with the unexpected disturbances that do arise.