Markets and business models are changing more quickly than ever. In order to remain competitive in this environment, organizations must also become more flexible.
While highly standardized processes and separate functions were once successful in hierarchically organized companies, the digital age requires a different kind of collaboration. This begins with a change in leadership behavior.
Changing leadership behavior
Leaders must learn to hand over and delegate decisionmaking authority and discretionary power to where good decisions can be developed most quickly and effectively.
In a week-long training session at UC Berkeley (US) in July 2018, around 60 executives from the TAKKT Group tackled with the topic of leadership in the digital age. The group reflected on different management styles and discussed the requirements for dynamic, effective teams. It also became clear to the participants that successful management of the new challenges also requires regular reviewing and adjustment of previous actions. What’s more, an approach that takes small steps and prioritizes activities in accordance with corporate goals leads to faster results.
Inspired by the training in Berkeley, the leadership team developed new leadership principles for TAKKT AG. Central to them is the idea of empowering employees and teams to act and make decisions more independently. A prerequisite for this is the provision of the right context through clear formulation of the purpose and goals of our actions. This serves as a common direction and forms the foundation of our priorities and decisions. Open communication also helps creating transparency.
More active role for TAKKT AG
Changes in the digital age also require a more active role for TAKKT AG. As a result, activities to increase the value of the individual companies will be expanded. Included among them are the company’s development, the formulation and implementation of strategic initiatives, the selection of target markets, portfolio management, the cross-segment coordination of expert teams as well as the expansion of strategic personnel management. TAKKT sees great potential particularly regarding operational excellence and data & analytics, and will build small teams in order to support the divisions with the corresponding expertise.