Learning to manage dilemmas

One speaks of a dilemma when a person or organization wants or needs to achieve several, sometimes contradictory goals at the same time. A typical dilemma is the much-discussed "compatibility of family and career". As with all dilemmas, this conflict of goals can only be resolved to a limited extent - no matter how much support is provided by the employer or the state. After all, if you want to earn a lot of money, you generally have to work a lot, too.

When dead ends threaten...

Dilemmas such as those described above also exist in companies. A typical management dilemma is: if the company is to remain one of the top providers in the market in the future, it must invest. However, if a lot of money is spent on this, then liquidity and earnings fall and debt increases. The consequence: the company becomes more dependent on capital providers, and this can endanger its independence and even its existence. In times of crisis or market upheaval, when a paradigm shift takes place in the corporate environment, dilemmas become more acute, because then the usual ways of dealing with such conflicting goals often end in dead ends.

Dilemmas can only be managed

A characteristic feature of dilemmas is that they cannot be solved, but only managed. It goes without saying that a company must take precautions to ensure that it will still be successful in five or ten years' time. So it has to invest and continue to develop. At the same time, however, it must ensure that it can still carry out its day-to-day business and remain liquid. Productivity and marketability must not suffer. The real art lies in finding the right balance. When managing dilemmas, the following "steps" can be distinguished:

• Step 1: Recognize the dilemma. Even this is often difficult for those involved in the company. The top decision-makers, because they are not involved enough in the day-to-day business, and the managers, because they primarily focus on their own (task) area in their work.
• Step 2: Do not negate the dilemma. Pragmatic doers tend to negate dilemmas. For example, they often interpret indications of (potential) problems as an expression of a lack of decisiveness and drive. Their actions are correspondingly actionistic. This often even bears "fruit", for example in the form of a short-term increase in sales or profits. However, it usually takes its toll at some point that the "competing" goals were neglected for a longer period of time. For example, in the form that the company's products are no longer marketable. Or top performers leave the company.
• Step 3: Point out the dilemma. Most of the goals of companies influence each other reciprocally. Accordingly, it is important for managing dilemmas to analyze which goals the company has, how they are interrelated, to what extent they influence each other and what impact they have on short-, medium- and long-term success. It can be helpful to draw up a strategy map in which the goals are listed and their interrelationships are mapped.
• Step 4: Agree on rules for dealing with dilemmas. Suppose an employee realizes that it is difficult for me to reconcile family and career and that I am suffering as a result? Then he should talk to his supervisor and say to him: "Boss, I have a 'conflict of objectives'. Let's talk about how we can ...." He should also sit down with his partner and say to him, for example, "We both want to have a career and still have time for ourselves and our family. Let's talk about how we ....". At the end of the conversation, arrangements can be made and rules agreed on for dealing with the conflict of goals.
  It is similar in companies. Here, too, someone has to take the initiative and say emphatically: "We have a conflict of objectives and need to agree on a strategy for how to...." Otherwise, there is a danger that the processing of the conflict of objectives will be put on the back burner until, figuratively speaking, the hut is on fire and the "problem" has already become a crisis or even a catastrophe. This must be avoided.
• Step 5: Don't be a stickler for the rules. Companies operate in a dynamic environment. That's why those responsible must regularly check: Are the formulated rules still suitable for managing dilemmas or do we need new ones? This applies in particular when unforeseen events such as the collapse of strategically important supply chains or a massive increase in raw material and energy prices threaten the company's ability to act and its liquidity. Then decision-makers must ask themselves: Should we suspend our current rules for dealing with the dilemmas, at least temporarily, in order to remain able to act and operate in the market?

VUKA world requires sharpened dilemma awareness

Companies can only respond flexibly to special challenges and changing conditions if there is a shared awareness of dilemmas, at least among the management team. Companies must communicate this to their employees and especially to their managers. In addition, their management personnel should learn to manage many partially contradictory goals in parallel and to rebalance them as needed.

To the author: Dr. Georg Kraus is the owner of the management consulting firm Dr. Kraus & Partner, Bruchsal. He is a lecturer at the University of Karlsruhe, the IAE in Aix-en-provence, the St.Gallen Business School and the Technical University of Clausthal, as well as the author of several change and project management manuals.