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When the Numbers Are Bad, Less Control Is Needed
In recent weeks the news has been dominated by missed targets, cost programmes and job cuts. The reflex in this situation is almost always the same: more control. Tighter reporting cycles, deeper granularity, more approval loops.
That is understandable. It rarely helps.
When the numbers are bad, the decisive question is not how precisely the problem can be measured. It is which options for action exist at all, and which of them will work.
That calls for less control and more imagination. Not in the sense of optimism, but as a stance: we can shape this, we can think ahead, we can act.
More control describes the past more precisely. It opens up not a single new option.
Good steering does not come from fear of variances. It comes from a willingness to treat the future as something that can be influenced.