Lost in Procedures

My latest blog entry: https://daanpotjer.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/lost-in-procedures/

In the way risk management currently dominates entrepreneurship, urban areas are developing, regulatory oversight is evolving, the political debate is shaping up: people get lost in procedures in the absence of vision.

Without a vision, a big picture strategy, people generally resort to strictly sticking to rules and procedures. It matters more to them that the procedure is followed in the right way, than what the actual outcome is.

Speaking on Dutch national television, landscape architect Adriaan Geuze lamented the way urban areas are developing: the procedures are closely adhered to, but the outcome is something nobody ordered. No-one likes the ugly office buildings, grey and shapeless industrial estates and concrete-surrounded transport networks that are currently being built when cities are expanding.

The way in which urban development is run is no different from many other areas of the economy and politics:

Politicians nowadays debate mostly about one-off plug-gap laws, zoom in on rules for individual cases and in general get stranded in petty details.

In large corporates the CFO's, CRO's and other 'risk managers' have taken over from the CEO's during the recent crisis, and do not let go of the power gained. This means that entrepreneurship is stifled and companies remain in the 'steady as she goes', 'do not take too many risks' and 'new is bad'-mode that works in times of crisis, but will ultimately lead to their demise in this fast changing world.

Regulatory oversight is also more-and-more rule-based and less done from a bigger picture on how to really impact the behaviour of market participants. Politicians are by the way not helping in this regard in their quest for ever more regulation.

There is however a way out: a clear vision.

Big infrastructure projects like the Dutch Delta Works (protecting the Dutch shores against the sea), projects like the New deal that got the US going in the 1930's, the launch of the first Space Shuttle and the huge speed of development in the tech world, are not born out of just following procedures, but out of working in a concerted way within a clear vision. When asked what he was doing on a daily basis, the accountant of the Lunar Project answered: "putting men on the Moon!"

It is clear that there is currently a lack of vision in the economy and in politics. It is time people refocus from procedures and rules to where they really want to head to, what the world they live and work in should look like. In the absence of vision, people lose themselves in rules and procedures. This is detrimental to getting the outcomes we really want.