Management heute: In Zielsystemen gefangen? Plädoyer für eine Neubesinnung auf eine Sinn-basierte Unternehmensführung

With the shareholder value approach, extremely differentiated target systems also found their way into practice. Top quantitative targets for the enterprise value, such as sales growth or the EBIT margin, were broken down into subordinate target levels and a large number of sub-targets via value drivers (KPIs), which had to be achieved by the relevant areas of the company in favor of shareholder value. Leadership then takes place through target agreements between top management at the corporate level and the management teams of the business units. However, studies show that this leadership approach is leading to organizations which are increasingly perceived by many employees as emptied of meaning, motivation-inhibiting and also not really social. A weakening of performance (decline in innovation, flattening of growth, etc.) is usually the result. The purpose of this paper is to fundamentally question the usefulness of such management via supreme quantitative goals, as propagated and practiced in many places, with regard to its suitability for companies of the 21st century. It will be shown how this situation can be overcome by subordinating the quantitative goals to a higher common purpose ("shared purpose").