Situation Based Management

Imagine this: On Super Bowl Sunday, both the coaches suddenly discard their playbooks and decide to create new plays on the fly.

How will the game unfold?

Given their vast experiences, the coaches may be able to come up with somewhat decent plays. However, on the spur of the moment, with very little time to think things through and know the consequences of the actions, the plays would be less than optimal. Moreover, it would be difficult to communicate the new plays with the team giving ample opportunity for mistakes! The plays and execution thereof would be far below the standards we have come to expect in Super Bowl teams.

The value of a playbook for team sports is that the coaches can quickly analyze the given situation and find the optimal response.

How valuable are playbooks to businesses? What if managers can assess situations and use pre-determined processes to fit these situations?

Management playbooks, or tactical frameworks as I call them, form the basis of a new style of management that I call Situation Based Management (SBM).

The great management guru Peter Druker had once said, "There are no monopolies anymore, only windows of opportunity." In today's rapidly changing environment, even windows of opportunity do not last long. I have developed SBM as a new management paradigm to help managers optimize their team's response to changing situations.

For more information about Situation Based Management, please contact me at prakash AT vksassociates.com.