Change Management

To change in complex agile contexts means to act and to learn based on the lessons learned. This is because it is assumed that many parameters in a change situation are not known or can change at the same time. Thus, experimentation and evaluation is done in short learning loops. Nevertheless, it is often necessary to back up this experimental action with revenue and profitability from the existing core business. This ability to act both cost-consciously efficiently and flexibly and effectively is illustrated by the term organizational ambidextry (also ambidextrous management). Ambidextry thus integrates exploitation (exploiting what already exists) and exploration (exploring what is new). Change projects are thus driven forward both hierarchical-traditionally and networked-agilely. Accordingly, communication processes are either mostly top-down and bottom-up, analog to predefined change patterns, or networked, so that the need for change arises from the joint consideration of facts and circumstances, can be approached jointly in an experimental manner, and a collective transfer of knowledge can take place. In such situations, internal communication is more than ever responsible for conveying meaning and orientation. It has to ensure that the reasons for an ambidextrous strategy are understood, provide comprehensible arguments for different management principles, explain cause-and-effect relationships, and repeatedly remind people that the entire organization is still striving for the same major goal.