The buzzword ‘profitable growth’ shaped a whole decade of business change processes. Ongoing optimisation and efficiency-enhancing programmes have dominated corporate development in recent years. KPIs became the central instrument of a technocratic style of management. Success was measured from one quarter to the next, with ever-uptrending earnings curves and share prices. It seemed everything could be calculated and controlled down to the last detail.

But suddenly everything has changed: no more linear growth doctrine, no more calculability, no more constant success stories. Instead, companies are faced with transformation processes in business, society and politics whose medium- and long-term impact on their own business models is unforeseeable. By contrast, the direct consequences for day-to-day business are very tangible. Unsettled and disillusioned by the sweeping promises of change made in recent years, the workforce distances itself from management. Meanwhile, the management team finds it difficult to communicate new, credible and realistic future prospects.

A post-technocratic approach to leadership and dialogue

What we need now are virtues that have gone neglected for years: entrepreneurial spirit, innovativeness and leadership. We need a new – post-technocratic – approach to leadership that stimulates and strengthens in-house self-renewal capabilities and encourages staff to take on entrepreneurial responsibility. To achieve this, we need to develop new ways of creating meaning and new success criteria that go beyond the hackneyed vocabulary of growth and efficiency. The challenge is to explain large-scale transformation processes to those within the company.

The only way to achieve this is through dialogue. Dialogue between top executives to generate a joint understanding of the renewal and the firm’s future. Dialogue with managers to inspire them with their new task of reshaping the company and secure their commitment. And dialogue with the workforce to engender new confidence and a new sense of strength.

Transformation & Leadership navigates through far-reaching renewal projects and provides stability and orientation.

Our service portfolio in the Transformation & Leadership consulting discipline comprises:

• Advising top executives
• Cultural processes
• Explaining strategies
• Executive communications
• Global campaigning
• Compliance communications
• Process management