The first post in the series — Caught in the middle talked about energy (oil) as a driving force behind economic disruption. Today’s post discusses basic approaches to address these disruptions.
Middle managers will see talent, facilities, feedstocks, logistics, and financial expectations shift more rapidly than in previous years. Operating managers will need agility and resilience to cope even as global enterprises CFO’s have to adjust for global impacts. This will increase middle managers conservative (and good steward) impulses: tight controls early in a period on budget (affecting talent and initiatives), conservative planning for revenue (encounters with inflation) keeping down aggressive pricing, and expectations of more uncontrollable costs (energy, logistics, feedstocks).
These good steward impulses will raise benefit and timing expectations for existing initiatives. Even high-status BAD projects (Big Data, AI, Data Science) will be expected to deliver more results faster. All this will occur against rising talent salaries and benefits. Middle managers will come to these actions without much urging from senior management in their own self-interests.
Middle management will be hard to convince of anything “new and improved” in selling situations. Initiatives approved will tightly focus on near-term savings, revenue, or risk-mitigation (like reducing product costs). Investments for enterprise sustainability will likely slow. This change in attitude will also lower tolerance in investments for agility or resilience where benefits are more than 4-6 quarters out. Longer term “climate change” or “green energy” changes not providing immediate paybacks will be pushed out.
The next Post, “Winning by taking the long perspective” will be posted at this LinkedIn feed or www.ekalore.com/ARS
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