The board has three strategic options on the table. All are well-founded, the data is robust, the benchmarks are clear. Yet, the discussion keeps going in circles. Every option has its advocates; every option has its critics. More analyses are requested, new meetings scheduled.
What becomes visible here is not an information problem. Klaus Eidenschink and Ulrich Merkes have described it precisely: Decisions always destroy an attractive alternative in favour of the possibility that is realised. They are based on conflicts between equally valid options, cause a sense of loss, are dependent on one's standpoint, and therefore inevitably produce critics who - with good reason - would have preferred to choose differently (cf. Eidenschink/Merkes 2021).
More data does not solve this problem. Sometimes, it only makes it more apparent.
What Classical Consulting Achieves and Where It Reaches Its Limits
Classical management consulting operates according to a clear logic: benchmarks show where the organisation stands in comparison. Analyses identify weaknesses. Concepts provide best practices. The goal is optimisation: bringing the organisation closer to an ideal state.
This work is valuable. It creates clarity regarding options, quantifies potential, and structures complexity. It answers the question: What could we do?
The limit is reached where a different question becomes relevant: How do we decide what we do, and how do we handle the consequences?
Every decision creates "losers". Not just between people, but between perspectives, time logics, and definitions of quality. Those who decide in an organisation simultaneously decide which rationality takes precedence and which does not. While new formal strategies are announced, decision patterns often persist that contradict the new direction - not out of malice, but because they remain functional for a part of the organisation.
Organisations as Fields of Tension
This is where a different perspective begins: organisations are not machines to be optimised. They are fields of tension to be navigated.
In every organisation, contradictory decisions run in parallel: speed versus thoroughness. Trust versus control. External orientation versus internal optimisation. Participation versus the capacity to act.
These are not "bugs" in the system. This is the very architecture in which organisations make decisions.
If you want to be fast, you cannot simultaneously be thorough. If you trust, you control less. If you involve everyone, you decide more slowly. The nine guiding distinctions described by Eidenschink and Merkes show: there is no "right" side (cf. Eidenschink/Merkes 2021). There are only different prices to be paid and the question of whether one is aware of these prices.
Where Organisational Dynamics Complements Classical Consulting
Organisational dynamics is not a competitor to classical consulting. It complements it where the data is present, but the capacity to decide is lacking.
For example: the new strategy has been communicated, structures adjusted, processes defined. Six months later, the KPIs haven't budged. Classical consulting often reacts with process optimisation or increased control.
Organisational dynamics asks: What is the functional logic of what is happening here?
Stefan Kühl demonstrates that many organisations function precisely because rules are broken to suit the situation. This "useful illegality" is not a pathology; it is part of the culture, so deeply anchored that members would disappoint informal expectations if they did not participate (cf. Kühl 2020). Attempting to formalise this often destroys the very flexibility that keeps the organisation running.
The productive question is not: "What is going wrong here?" but rather: "What maintains the current pattern? Which decisions are being avoided, and why? Which conflicts are being kept productive by the existing structure?"
Uncertainty as a Resource
In dynamic environments, the readiness for and tolerance of uncertainty are the most vital capabilities. Not more knowledge (cf. Eidenschink/Merkes 2021; Eidenschink 2024).
This has consequences for both consulting and management: those who want change must find a way for the organisation to allow uncertainty back in where it previously operated with certainty. Confirmation alone - as catchy as it may be - merely extends the past into the future. It brings no new alternatives into play. The thought "Could it be otherwise?" is excluded (cf. Eidenschink 2024).
This does not mean questioning everything. It means: regulation instead of fixation. The ability to oscillate between poles - from moment to moment, depending on the context. Not "either/or", but the competence to decide situationally which side of a tension should currently take precedence. And to communicate that.
From Benchmarks to Decisions
Classical consulting and organisational dynamics answer different questions. One asks: What could we do? The other asks: How do we decide what we do, and how do we handle the consequences?
Both perspectives need each other. Benchmarks without the capacity to decide remain without consequence. The capacity to decide without options remains blind.
The question is not: optimisation OR dynamics. The question is: when is which perspective needed, and who can mediate between them?
References
Eidenschink, Klaus (2024): Das Verunsicherungsbuch. Für alle, die es gern sicher haben. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer.
Eidenschink, Klaus / Merkes, Ulrich (2021): Entscheidungen ohne Grund. Organisationen verstehen und beraten. Eine Metatheorie der Veränderung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Kühl, Stefan (2020): Brauchbare Illegalität. Vom Nutzen des Regelbruchs in Organisationen. Frankfurt/New York: Campus.
Read also Decisions in organisations
