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The Successive Principle allows management an early overview with a documented accuracy.
All too often, managers have had to be passive onlookers as unwelcome, unplanned events unfold, be they caused by erroneous assumptions, by failure or error on someone’s part, by delay on the authorities’ or politicians’ part, by the vagaries of weather or water, by underestimated cultural differences or simply by over-optimism or lack of foresight.
But now you, as a manager or other key person, can choose to become an active player in terms of tackling the insecurity of the future with all the threats and positive opportunities that entails.
Managers have obviously always wished they could foresee the immediate future. How will the situation develop? Will the investment budget hold up? Will the sale be profitable? Will this or next year’s bottom line be in the black and if not, where can we make adjustments? Will we be delayed? Should we put the pressure on and if so, how? Is the five-year plan realistic? Which strategic alternatives should we look to?
For the short-sighted car driver, a pair of glasses is invaluable. For managers, a pair of ‘clairvoyancy glasses’ would seem to be as invaluable as they are unobtainable. And yet the very thing is actually available on the market!
It’s true: such a pair of ‘clairvoyancy glasses’ has indeed been developed! Following years of international development work in the 1970s, this management tool came on the market in about 1980. It has subsequently been tried and tested in theory and in practice by managers, in assignments of almost all shapes and sizes, ranging from the price of an office building to winning ‘mega projects’ in international competitions. Even for its greatest advocates its results came as a pleasant surprise. This is of course bound up with the fact that this was the first management tool of its kind which was not encumbered by serious methodological flaws.
It is now possible for managers to obtain at very early stage far more reliable information on a number of future results and consequences. This applies both to the end result and in particular to knowledge about where the largest threats, uncertainties and in particular the best optimisation opportunities are to be found. Management can therefore look actively into the issues, take the necessary corrective decisions in time, choose the right strategic alternative or, if appropriate, call a timely halt.
These unique results are achieved through group analysis using the Successive Principle, which is a creative combination of common sense, psychology, statistical theory and group synergy. Refined over approximately a thousand analyses in several countries since 1980, this practical procedure is relatively simple and easy to use, even for those who have no specialist expertise.
Uncertainty, far from being the extreme problem it used to be, is now possibly the most useful potential in an increasingly competitive world. It can now serve as an active tool. Indeed, this is what is meant by ‘proactive management of uncertainty’. Read more on this home page or in the links and references
About Dr. Steen Lichtenberg